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The History of the 

American Expedition 

Fighting the 

Bolsheviki 



Campaigning in North Russia 
1918-1919 



Compiled and Edited by 

Capt. Joel R. Moore, 339th U. S. Infantry 
Lieut. Harry H.'Mead, 339th U. S. Infantry 
Lieut. Lewis E. Jahns, 339th U. S. Infantry 



Publiihed by 

The Polar Bear Publishing Co. 
Detroit, Mich. 



COPTRIOHT 1920 
BT 

Joel R. Moobe 



©CLA601596 



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PBESS OF 

Topping-Sandebs CouPANr 

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To Our Comrades and Friends 

To OUR comrades and friends we address these prefatory words. The 
book is about to go to the printers and binders. Constantly while writing 
the historical account of the American expedition, which fought the 
Bolsheviki in North Russia, we have had our comrades in mind. You are the 
ones most interested in getting a complete historical account. It is a wonderful 
story of your own fighting and hardships, of your own fortitude and valor. It 
is a story that will make the eyes of the home folks shine with pride. 

Probably you never could have known how remarkably good is the record of 
your outfits in that strange campaign if you had not commissioned three of your 
comrades to write the book for you. In the national army, we happened to be 
officers; in civil life we are respectively, college professor, lawyer, and public 
accountant, in the order in which our names appear on the title page. But we 
prefer to come to you now with the finished product merely as comrades who 
request you to take the book at its actual value to you — a faithful description of 
our part in the great world war. We are proud of the record the Americans made 
in the expedition. 

We think that nothing of importance has been omitted. Some sources of in- 
formation were not open to us — will be to no one for years. But from some copies 
of official reports, from company and individual diaries, and from special contribu- 
tions written for us, we have been able to write a complete narrative of the expedi- 
tion. In all cases except a few where the modesty of the writer impelled him to 
ask us not to mention his name, we have referred to individuals who have con- 
tributed to the book. To these contributors all, we here make acknowledgment 
of our debt to them for their cordial co-operation. For the wealth of photo- 
engravures which the book carries, we have given acknowledgment along with 
each individual engraving, for furnishing us with the photographic views of the 
war scenes and folk scenes of North Russia. Most of them are, of course, from 
the official United States Signal Corps war pictures. 

When we started the book, we had no idea that it would develop into the big 
book it is, a de luxe edition, of fine materials and fine workmanship. We have 
not been able to risk a large edition. Only two thousand copies are being printed. 
They are made especially for the boys who were up there under the Arctic Circle, 
made as nice as we could get them made. Of many of the comrades we have lost 
track, but we trust that somehow they will hear of this book and become one of 
the proud possessors of a copy. To our comrades and friends, we offer this volume 
with the expectation that you will be pleased with it and that after you have read 
it, you will glow with pride when you pass it over to a relative or friend to read. 

Detroit, Michigan, Joel R. Moore 

September, 1920 Harry H. Mead 

Lewis E. Jahns 



Table of Contents 



Index to Photo-Engravures . 

Introduction ..... 

U. S. A. Medical Units on the Arctic Ocean 

Fall Offensive on the Railroad 

River Push for Kotlas ' . 

Doughboys on Guard in Archangel 

Why American Troops Were Sent to Russia 

On the Famous Kodish Front in the Fall 

Penetrating to Ust Padenga 

Peasantry of the Archangel Province 

"H" Company Pushes Up the Onega Valley 

"G" Company Far Up the Pinega River 

With Wounded and Sick 

Armistice Day with Americans in North Russia 

Winter Defense of Toulgas 

Great White Reaches . 

Mournful Kodish 

Ust Padenga 

The Retreat from Shenkursk 

Defense of Pinega 

The Land and the People 

Holding the Onega Valley 

Ice-Bound Archangel . 

Winter on the Railroad 

Bolsheozerki 

Letting Go the Tail-Holt 

The 310th Engineers . 

"Come Get Your Pills" 

Signal Platoon Wins Commendation 

The Doughboy's Money in Archangel 

Propaganda and Propaganda and — 

Real Facts about Alleged Mutiny 

Our Allies, French, British and Russian 

Felchers, Priests and Icons 

Bolshevism 

Y. M. C. A. and Y. W. C. A. with Troops 

"Dobra" Convalescent Hospital . 

American Red Cross in North Russia 

Captive Doughboys in Bolshevikdom 

Military Decorations . 

Homeward Bound 

In Russia's Fields (Poem) 

Our Roll of Honored Dead 

Map of the Archangel Fighting Area 



Page 

8 

11 

15 

19 

31 

. 39- 

47- 

55 

. 63 

71 

8i 

85 

89 

. 101 

. 105 

. 115 

. 127 

. 135 

. 141 

. 151 

. 157 

. 167 

. 173 

. 183 

. 189 

. 193 

. 201 

. 207 

. 211 

. 213 

. 217 

. 223 

. 231 

. 243 

. 247 

. 255 

. 263 

. 271 

. 273 

. 283 

. 289 

. 298 

. 2^^ 

Back Cover 



Index of PhotO'Engravures 



Opposite 
Page 

Hundreds of Miles Through Solid 

Forests Frontispiece 

Surgical Operation, Receiving Hos 

pital, Archangel 

Old Glory Protects Our Hospital 
Used as 53rd Stationary Hospital 
"Olympia" Sailors Fought Reds. 
After 17-Hour March in Forest . . 
Loading a Drosky at Obozerskaya 
Wireless Operators — Signal Platoon 17 
A Shell Screeched Over This Burial 

Scene 32 

Vickers Machine Gun Helping Hold 

Lines 32 

Our Armored Train 32 

First Battalion Hurries Up River. . . 32 

Lonely Post in Dense Forest 32 

Statue of Peter the Great and Pub- 
lic Buildings, Archangel 33 

Drawing Rations, Verst 455 33 

Last Honors to a Soldier 33 

Olga Barracks 48 

Street Car Strike in Archangel .... 48 

American Hospitals 48 

"Supply" Co. Canteen "Accommo- 
dates" Boys 48 

Red Cross Ambulances, Archangel . 48 
"Cootie Mill" Operating at Smolny 

Annex 49 

Single Flat Strip of Iron on Plow 

Point 49 

Thankful for What at Home We 

Feed Pigs 49 

Artillery "O. P." Kodish 64 

Mill for Grinding Grain 64 

Pioneer Platoon Clearing Fire Lane. 64 
Testing Vickers Machine Gun 64 

Doughboy Observing Bolo in Pag- 
osta, near Ust Padenga 65 

Cossack Receiving First Aid 65 

Ready for Day's Work 65 

Flax Hung Up to Dry 65 

310th Engineers at Beresnik 65 

Joe Chinzi and Russian Bride 80 

Watching Her Weave Cloth 80 



Opposite 
Page 

Doughboy Attends Spinning Bee . . 80 

Doughboy in Best Bed — On Stove. . 80 

Defiance to Bolo Advance 81 

337th Hospital at Beresnik 81 

Onega 81 

Y. M. C. A., Obozerskaya 81 

Trench Mortar Crew, Chekuevo — 

Hand Artillery 96 

Wounded and Sick — Over a Thou- 
sand in All 96 

Bolo Killed in Action — For Russia 

or Trotsky? 96 

Monastery at Pinega 97 

Russian 75's Bound for Pinega .... 97 

"G" Men near Pinega 97 

Lewis Gun Protects Mess Hall .... 97 
Something Like Selective Draft. . .112 
Canadian Artillery, Kurgomin . . . .112 

Watch Tower, Verst 455 112 

Toulgas Outpost 112 

One of a Bolo Patrol 112 

Patrolling 112 

By Reindeer Jitney to Bakaritza. . 128 
Russian Eskimos at Home near 

Pinega 128 

Fortified House, Toulgas 128 

To Bolsheozerki 128 

Colonel Morris, at Right 128 

Russian Eskimo Idol 128 

Ambulance Men 128 

Practising Rifle and Pistol Fire, on 

Onega Front 129 

French Machine Gun Men at Ko- 
dish 129 

Allied Plane Carrying Bombs 129 

Dance at Convalescent Hospital — 

Nurses and "Y" Girls 145 

Subornya Cathedral 145 

Building a Blockhouse 145 

Market Scene, Yemetskoe 160 

Old Russian Prison — Annex to 
British Hospital 160 

Wash Day — Rinsing in River 160 

Archangel Cab-Men 160 

Minstrels of "I" Company Repeat 
Program in Y. M. C. A 161 



Index of Photo- Engravures 



Opposite 
Page 

Archangel Girls Filling Christmas 

Stockings 161 

Y. M. C. A. Rest Room, Archangel . 161 
Russian Masonry Stove — ^American 

Convalescent Hospital 176 

Comrade Allikas Finds His Mother 

in Archangel 176 

Printing "The American Sentinel". . 176 
Flashlight of a Doughboy Outpost 

at Verst 455 192 

Bolo Commander's Sword Taken in 

Battle of Bolsheozerki 192 

Eight Days without a Shave, near 

Bolsheozerki 192 

Woodpile Strong-Point, Verst 445.. .193 

Verst 455— "Fort Nichols" . . .193 

Back from Patrol 193 

Our Shell Bursts near the Bolo 

Skirmish Line 193 

Blockhouse at Shred Makrenga . . 193 
Hot Summer Day at Pinega before 

the World War 209 

Dvina River Ice Jam in April 209 

Bare Mejinovsky — Near Kodish. . .209 
Bolo General under Flag Truce at 

445, April, 1919 209 

After Prisoner Exchange Parley . . . 209 

Pioneer Platoon Has Fire 224 

310th Engineers Under Canvas 

near Bolsheozerki with "M" Co.. 224 

Hospital "K. P.'s" 224 

Red Cross Nurses 224 

Bartering 224 

Mascots 224 

Colonel Dupont (French) at 455 

Bestows Many Croix de Guerre 

Medals on Americans 225 



Opposite 
.Page 

Polish Artillery and Mascot 225 

Russian Artillery, Verst 18 225 

Canadian Artillery — Americans 

Were Strong for Them 240 

Making Khleha—^\Qz]s. Bread 240 

Stout Defense of Kitsa 240 

Christmas Dinner, Convalescent 
Hospital, Archangel 256 

"Come and Get It" at 455 256 

Orderly Room, Convalescent Hos- 
pital, Archangel 256 

American Hospital Scene 256 

Doughboys Entertained by "Y" 
Girls in Hostess House 257 

Doughboys Drubbed Sailors 257 

Yank and Scot Guarding Bolo Pris- 
oners, Beresnik 257 

View of Archangel in Summer 273 

General Ironside Inspecting Dough- 
boys 273 

Burial of Lt. Clifford Phillips, Amer- 
ican Cemetery, Archangel 273 

Major J. Brooks Nichols in his Rail- 
way Detachment Field Hq 288 

Ready to Head Memorial Day 
Parade, Archangel, 1919 288 

American Cemetery, Archangel . . . 288 

Soldiers and Sailors of Six Nations 
Reverence Dead 288 

Graves of First Three Americans 
Killed, Obozerskaya, Russia. . . .289 

Sailors Parade on Memorial Day . . 289 

Through Ice Floes in Arctic Home- 
ward Bound 289 

Out of White Sea into Arctic, under 
Midnight Sun 289 



INTRODUCTION 

THE troopships "Somali," "Tydeus," and "Nagoya" rubbed the 
Bakaritza and Smolny quays sullenly and listed heavily to port. 
The American doughboys grimly marched down the gangplanks and 
set their feet on the soil of Russia, September 5th, 1918. The dark waters 
of the Dviila River were; beaten into fury by the opposing north wind and 
ocean tide. And the lowering clouds of the Arctic sky added their dismal bit 
to this introduction to the dreadful conflict which these American sons of 
liberty were to wage with the Bolsheviki during the year's campaign. 

In the rainy fall season by their dash and valor they were to expel the 
Red Guards from the cities and villages of the state of Archangel, pur- 
suing the enemy vigorously up the Dvina, the Vaga, the Onega and the 
Pinega Rivers, and up the Archangel- Vologda Railway and the Kodish- 
Plesetskaya-Petrograd state highway. They were to plant their entrenched 
outpostst in a great irregular horseshoe line, one cork at Chekuevo, the toe 
at Ust-Padenga, the other cork of the shoe at Karpagorskaya. They were 
to run out from the city of Archangel long, long lines of communication, 
spread wide like the fingers of a great hand that sought seemingly to cover 
as much of North Russia as possible with Allied military protection. 

In the winter, in the long, long nights and black, howling forests and 
frozen trenches, with ever-deepening snows and sinking thermometer, with 
the rivers and the White Sea and the Arctic Ocean solid ice fifteen feet 
thick, these same soldiers now seen disembarking from the troopships, were 
to find their enemy greatly increasing his forces every month at all points 
on the Allied line. Stern defense everywhere on that far-flung trench and 
blockhouse and fortified-village battle line. They were to feel the over- 
whelming pressure of superior artillery and superior equipment and trans- 
portation controlled by the enemy and especially the crushing odds of four 
to ten times the number of men on the battle lines. And with it they were 
to feel the dogged sense of the grim necessity of fighting for every verst 
of frozen ground. Their very lives were to depend upon the stubbornness 
of their holding retreat. There could be no retreating beyond Archangel, 
for the ships were frozen in the harbor. Indeed a retreat to the city of 
Archangel itself was dangerous. It might lead to revulsion of temper among 
the populace and enable the Red Guards to secure aid from within the lines 
so as to carry out Trotsky's threat of pushing the foreign bayonets all 
under the ice of the White Sea. And in that remarkable winter defense these 
American soldiers were to make history for American arms, exhibiting cour- 
age and fortitude and heroism, the stories of which are to embellish the annals 
of American martial exploits. They were destined, a handful of them 
here, a handful there, to successfully baffle the Bolshevik hordes in their 
savage drives. 

In the spring the great ice crunching up in the rivers and the sea was to 
behold those same veteran Yanks still fighting the Red Guard armies and 

11 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

doing their bit to keep the state of Archangel, the North Russian Republic, 
safe, and their own skins whole. The warming sun and bursting green 
were to see the olive-drab uniform, tattered and torn as it was, covering 
a wearied and hungry and homesick but nevertheless fearless and valiant 
American soldier. With deadly effect they were to meet the onrushing 
swarms of Bolos on all fronts and slaughter them on their wire with rifle 
and machine gun fire and smasTi up their reserves with artillery fire. With 
desperation they were to dispute the overwhelming columns of infantry 
who were hurled by no less a renowned old Russian General than Kuro- 
patkin, and at Malo Bereznik and Bolsheozerki, in particular, to send them 
reeling back in bloody disaster. They were to fight the Bolshevik to a 
standstill so that they could make their guarded getaway. 

Summer was to see these Americans at last handing over the defenses to 
Russian Northern Republic soldiers who had been trained during the winter 
at Archangel and gradually during the spring broken in for duty alongside 
the American and British troops and later were to hold the lines in some 
places by themselves and in others to share the lines with the new British 
troops coming in twenty thousand strong "to finish the bloody show." Gaily 
decorated Archangel was to bid the Americanski dasvedanhnia and God- 
speed in June. Blue rippling waters were to meet the ocean-bound prows. 
Music from the Cruiser "Des Moines" (come to see us out) was to blow 
fainter and fainter in the distance as they cheered us out of the Dvina River 
for home. 

Now the troops are hurrying off the transport. They are just facing the 
strange, terrible campaign faintly outlined. It is now our duty to faithfully 
tell the detailed story of it — "The History of the American North Russian 
Expedition," to try to do justice in this short volume to the gripping story 
of the American soldiers "Campaigning in North Russia, 1918-1919." 

The American North Russian Expeditionary Force consisted of the 339th 
Infantry, which had been known at Camp Custer as "Detroit's Own," one 
battalion of the 310th Engineers, the 337th Ambulance Company, and the 
337th Field Hospital Company. The force was under the command of Col. 
George E. Stewart, 339th Infantry, who was a veteran of the Philippines 
and of Alaska. The force numbered in all, with the replacements who came 
later, about five thousand five hundred men. 

These units had been detached from the 85th Division, the Custer Division, 
while it was enroute to France, and had been assembled in southern England, 
there re-outfitted for the climate and warfare of the North of Russia. On 
August the 25th, the American forces embarked at Newcastle-on-Tyne 
in three British troopships, the "Somali," the "Tydeus" and the "Nagoya" 
and set sail for Archangel, Russia. A fourth transport, the "Czar," carried 
Italian troops who travelled as far as the Murmansk with our convoy. 

The voyage up the North Sea and across the Arctic Ocean, zig-zagging 
day and night for fear of the submarines, rounding the North Cape far to- 
ward the pole where the summer sun at midnight scarcely set below the 
northwestern horizon, was uneventful save for the occasional alarm of a 
floating mine and for the dreadful outbreak of Spanish "flu" on board the 

12 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

ships. On board one of the ships the supply of yeast ran out and breadless 
days stared the soldiers in the face till a resourceful army cook cudgelled up 
recollections of seeing his mother use drainings from the potato kettle in 
making her bread. Then he put the lightening once more into the dough. 
And the boys will remember also the frigid breezes of the Arctic that made 
them wish for their overcoats which by order had been packed in their 
barrack bags, stowed deep down in the hold of the ships. And this suffer- 
ing from the cold as they crossed the Arctic circle was a foretaste of what 
they were to be up against in the long months to come in North Russia. 

We had thought to touch the Murmansk coast on our way to Archangel, 
but as we zig-zagged through the white-capped Arctic waves we picked up 
a wireless from the authorities in command at Archangel which ordered the 
American troopships to hasten on at full speed. The handful of American 
sailors from the "Olympia," the crippled category men from England and the 
little battalion of French troops, which had boldly driven the Red Guards 
from Archangel and pursued them up the Dvina and up the Archangel- 
Vologda Railway, were threatened with extermination. The Reds had 
gathered forces and turned savagely upon them. 

So we sped up into the White Sea and into the winding channels of the 
broad Dvina. For miles and miles we passed along the shores dotted with 
fishing villages a'fid with great lumber camps. The distant domes of the 
cathedrals in Archangel came nearer and nearer. At last the water front 
of that great lumber port of old Peter the Great lay before us strange and 
picturesque. We dropped anchor at 10 :00 a. m. on the fourth day of 
September, 1918. The anchor chains ran out with a cautious rattle. We 
swung on the swift current of the Dvina, studied the shoreline and the sky- 
lirte of the city of Archangel, saw the Allied cruisers, bulldogs of the sea, 
and turned our eyes southward toward the boundless pine forest where our 
American and Allied forces were somewhere beset by the Bolsheviki, or we 
turned our eyes northward and westward whence we had come and wondered 
what the folks back home would say to hear of our fighting in North Russia. 



13 



I 

U. S. A. Medical Units On The Arctic Ocean 

Someone Blunders About Medicine Stores — Spanish Influenza At Sea 
And No Medicine — Improvised Hospitals At Time Of Landing — Get- 
ting Results In Spite Of Red Tape — Raising Stars And Stripes To 
Hold The Hospital — Aid Of American Red Cross — Doughboys Dis- 
like British Hospital — Starting American Receiving Hospital — 
Blessings On The Medical Men. 

At Stoney Castle camp in England, inquiry by the Americans had elicited 
statement from the British authorities that each ship would be well supplied 
with medicines and hospital equipment for the long voyage into the frig^id 
Arctic. But it happened that none were put on the boat and all that the med- 
ical officers had to use were three or four boxes of medical supplies that 
they had clung to all the way from Camp Custer. 

Before half the perilous and tedious voyage was completed, the dreaded 
Spanish influenza broke out on three of the ships. On the "Somali," which 
is typical of the three ships, every available bed was full on the fifth day 
out at sea. Congestion was so bad that men with a temperature of only 
101° or 102° were not put into the hospital but lay in their hammocks or on 
the decks. To make matters worse, on the eighth day out all the "flu" 
medicines were exhausted. 

It was a frantic medical detachment that paced the decks of those three 
ships for two days and nights after the ships arrived in the harbor of 
Archangel while preparations were being made for the improvisation of hos- 
pitals. 

On the 6th of September they debarked in the rain at Bakaritza. About 
thirty men could be accommodated in the old Russian Red Cross Hospital, 
such as it was, dirt and all. The remainder* were temporarily put into old 
barracks. What "flu"-weakened soldier will ever forget those double decked 
pine board beds, sans mattress, sans linen, sans pillows? If lucky, a man 
had two blankets. He could not take off his clothes. Death stalked gauntly 
through and many a man died with his boots on in bed. The glory of dying 
in France to lie under a ffeld of poppies had come to this drear mystery of 
dying in Russia under a dread disease in a strange and unlovely place. 
Nearly a hundred of them died and 'the wonder is that more men did not 
die. What stamina and courage the American soldier showed, to recover 
in those first dreadful weeks ! 

No attempt is made to fasten blame for this upon the American medical 
officers, nor upon the British ' for that matter. Many a soldier, though, was 
wont to wish that Major Longley had not himself been nearly dead of the 
disease when the ships arrived. To the credit of Adjutant Kiley, Captains 
Hall, Kinyon, Martin and Greenleaf and Lieutenants Lowenstein and Dan- 

15 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

zinger and the enlisted medical men, let it be said that they performed prodi- 
gies of labor trying to serve the sick men who were crowded into thej five 
hastily improvised hospitals. 

The big American Red Cross Hospital, receiving hospital at the base, was 
started at Archangel November 22nd by Captain Pyle under orders of Major 
Longley. The latter had been striving for quite a while to start' a separate 
receiving hospital for American wounded, but had been blocked by the Brit- 
ish medical authorities in Archangel. They declared that it was not feasible 
as the Americans had no equipment, supplies or medical personnel. 

However, the officer in charge of the American Red Cross force in Arch- 
angel offered to supply) the needed things, either by purchasing 'them from 
the stores of British medical supplies in Archangel or by sending back to 
England for them. It is 'said that the repeated letters of Major Longley to 
SOS in England somehow were always tangled in the British and American 
red tape, in going through military channels. 

At last Major Longley took the bull by the horns and accepted the aid of 
the Red Cross and selected and trained a personnel to run the hospital from 
among the officers and men who had been wounded and were recovered or 
partially recovered and were not fit fori further heavy duty on the fighting 
line. He had the valuable assistance also of the two American Red Cross 
nurses, Miss Foerster and Miss Gosling, the former' later being one of five 
American women who, for services in the World War, were awarded the 
Florence Nightingale Medal. 

On September 10th, we opened the first Red Cross Hospital which was also 
used in connection with the Russian Red Cross Hospital and was served by 
Russian Red Cross nurses. Captain Hall and Lieutenant Kiley were in 
charge of the hospital. 

A few days later an infirmary was opened for the machine gunners and 
Company "C" of the engineers at Solombola. 

A good story goes in connection with this piece of history of the little 
Red Cross hospital on Troitsky near Olga barracks. There had been rumor 
and more or less open declaration of the British medical authorities that the 
Americans would not be permitted to start a hospital of their own in Arch- 
angel. The Russian sisters who owned the building were interested ob- 
servers as to the outcome of this clash in authority. It was settled one 
morning about ten o'clock in a spectacular manner much to the satisfaction 
of the Americans and Russians. Captain Wynn of the American Red Cross 
came to the assistance of Captain Hall, supplying the American flag and 
helping raise it over the building and dared the British to take it down. 
Then he supplied the hospital with beds and linen and other supplies and 
comfort bags for the men, dishes, etc. This little hospital is a haven of 
rest that appears in the dreams today of many a doughboy who went through 
those dismal days of the first month in Archangel. There they got Amer- 
ican treatment and as far as possible food cooked in American style. 

In October the number of sick and wounded men was so large that another 
hospital for the exclusive use of convalescents was opened in an old Russian 
sailor's home in the near vicinity of American Headquarters. 

16 




Loading a Dro.tky at Ohozerskaya 



U S CFFiCIAL PHOTO 




Wireless Operators — Signal Platoon 



U. S OFFICIAL PHOTO 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIK! 

During this controversy with the British medical authorities, the head 
American medical officer was always handicapped, as indeed was many a fight- 
ing- line officer, by the fact that the British medical officer outranked him. 
Let it be understood right here that many a British officer was decorated 
with insignia of high rank but drew pay of low rank. It was actually done 
over and over again to give the British officer i-anking authority over the 
American officers. 

What American doughboy who ever went through the old 53rd Stationary 
hospital will ever forget his homesickness and feeling of outrage at the treat- 
ment by the perhaps well-meaning but nevertheless callous and coarse Brit- 
ish personnel. Think of tea, jam and bread for sick and wounded men. An 
American medical sergeant who has often eaten with the British sergeants 
at that hospital, Sergeant Glenn Winslow, who made out the medical record 
for every wounded and sick man of the Americans who went through the 
various hospitals at Archangel, and who was frequently present at the Brit- 
ish sergeant's mess at the hospital, relates that there were plenty of fine foods 
and delicacies and drink for the sergeant's messes, corroborated by Mess Sgt. 
Vincent of "F" Company. And a similar story was told by an American 
medical officer who was invalided home in charge of over fifty wounded 
Americans. He had often heard that the comforts and delicacies among the 
British hospital supplies went to the British officers' messes. Captain Pyle 
was in command on the icebreaker "Canada" and saw to it that the limited 
supply of delicacies went to the wounded men most in need of it. There 
were several British officers on the icebreaker enroute to Murmansk who set 
up a pitiful cry that they had seen npne of the extras to which they were 
accustomed, thinking doubtless that the American officer was holding back 
on them. Captain Pyle on the big ship out of Murmansk took occasion to 
request of. the British skipper that the American wounded on board the ship 
be given more food and more palatable food. He was asked if he expected 
more for the doughboy than was given to the Tommie. The American 
officer's reply was characteristic of the difference between the attitude of 
British and American officers toward the enlisted man : 

"No, sir, it is not a question of different treatment as between Tommie 
and doughboy. It is difference in the feeding of the wounded and sick 
American officers and the feeding of wounded and sick American enlisted 
men. My government makes no such great difference. I demand that my 
American wounded men be fed more like the way in which the officers on 
this ship are fed." 

Lest we forget, this same medical officer in charge at one time of a tem- 
porary hospital at a key point in the field, was over-ranked and put under a 
British medical officer who brought about the American officer's recall to 
the base because he refused to put the limited American medical personnel 
of enlisted men to digging latrines for the British officers' quarters. 

Many a man discharged from the British 53rd Stationary Hospital as' fit 
for duty, was examined by American medical officers and put either into our 
own Red Cross Hospital or into the American Convalescent Hospital, for 
proper treatment and nourishment back to fighting condition. It was openly 

17 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

charged by the Americans that several Americans in the British hospital 
were neglected till they were bedsore and their lives endangered. Sick and 
wounded men were required to do orderly work. When a 'sturdy American 
corporal refused to do work or to supervise work of that nature in the hos- 
pital, he was court-martialled by order of the American colonel command- 
ing the American forces in North Russia. Of course it must needs be said 
that there were many fine men among the British medical officers and en- 
listed personnel. But what they did to serve the A.nerican doughboys was 
overborile by the mistreatment of the others. 

Finally no more wounded Americans were sent to the British hospital 
and no sick except those sick under G. O. 45. These latter found them- 
selves cooped up in an old Russian prison, partially cleaned up for a hos- 
pital ward. This was a real chamber of horrors to many an unfortunate 
soldier who was buffetted from hospital to Major Young's summary court 
to hospital or back to the guardhouse, all the while worrying about the 
ineffectiveness of his treatment. 

So the American soldiers at last got their own receiving hospital and their 
own convalescent hospital. Of course at the fighting fronts they were nearly 
always in the hands of their own American medical officers and enlisted 
men. The bright story of the Convalescent Hospital appears in another 
place. This receiving hospital was a fine old building which one time had 
been a meteorological institute, a Russian imperial educational institution. 
Its great stone exterior had gathered a venerable look in its two hundred 
years. The Americans were to give its interior a sanitary improvement 
by way of a set of modern plumbing. But the thing that pleased the wounded 
doughboy most was to find himself, when in dreadful need of the probe or 
knife, under the familiar and understanding and sympathetic eyes of Majors 
Henry or Longley or some other American officer, to find his wants answer- 
ed by an enlisted man who knew the slang of Broadway and Hamtramck 
and the small town slang of "back home in Michigan, down on the farm," 
and to find his food cooked and served as near as possible like it was "back 
home" to a sick man. Blessings on the medical men ! 



18 



II 

Fall Offensive On The Railroad 

Third Battalion Hurries From Troopship To Troop- Train Bound For 
Obozerskaya' — We Relieve Wearied French Battalion — "We Arei 
Fighting An Offensive War" — First Engagement — Memorable Night 
March Ends At Edge Of Lake — Our Enemy Compels Respect At 
Verst 458 — American Major Hangs On — Successful Flank March 
Takes Verst 455 — Front Line Is Set At 445 By Dashing Attack — 
We Hold It Despite Severe Bombardments And Heavy Assaults. 

On the afternoon of September the fifth the 3rd Battalion of the 339th 
Infantry debarked hurriedly at Bakaritza. Doughboys marched down the 
gangplank with their full field equipment ready for movement to the fighting 
front. Somewhere deep in the forest beyond* that skyline of pine tree tops 
a handful of French and Scots and American sailors were battling' the 
Bolos for their lives. The anxiety of the British staff officer — we know it 
was one of General Poole's staff, for we remember the red band on his cap, 
was evidenced by his impatience to get' the Americans aboard the string of 
tiny freight cars. 

Doughboys stretched their sea legs comfortably and formed in column of 
squads under the empty supply shed on the quay, to escape the cold drizzle 
of rain, while Major Young explained in detail how Captain Donoghue was 
to conduct the second train. 

All night long the two troop trains rattled along the Russki railway or 
stood interminably at strange-looking stations. The bare box cars were 
corded deep with sitting and curled up soldiers fitfully sleeping and starting 
to consciousness at the jerking and swaying of the train. Once at a weird 
log station by the flaring torchlights they had stood for a few minutes beside 
a northbound train loaded with Bolshevik prisoners and deserters gathered 
in that day after the successful Allied engagement. Morning found them 
at a big bridge that had been destroyed by artillery fire of the Red Guards 
the afternoon before, not far from the important village of Obozerskaya, 
a vital keypoint which just now we were to endeavor to organize the defense 
of, and use as a depot and junction point for other forces. 

No one who was there will forget the initial scene at Obozerskaya when 
two companies of Americans, "I" and "L", proceeded up the railroad track 
ifl column of twos and halted in ranks before the tall station building, with 
their battalion commander holding officers' call at command of the bugle. 
An excited little French officer popped out of his dugout and pointed at the 
shell holes )in the ground and in the station and spoke a terse phrase in 
French to the British field staff officer who was gnawing his mustache. 
The latter overcame his embarrassment enough to tell Major Young that 
the French officer feared the Bolo any minute would reopen artillery fire. 

19 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

Then we realized we were in the fighting zone. The major shouted orders 
out and shooed the platoons off into the woods. 

Later into the woods the French officers led the Americans who relieved 
them of their circle of fortified outposts. Some few in the vicinity of the 
scattered village made use of buildings, but most of the men stood guard in 
the drizzly rain in water up to their knees and between listening post tricks 
labored to cut branches enough to build up a dry platform for rest. The 
veteran French soldier had built him a fire at each post to dry his socks and 
breeches legs, but "the strict old disciplinarian," Major Young, ordered 
"No fires on the outpost." 

And this was war. Far up the railroad track "at the military crest" an 
outpost trench was dug in strict accordance with army book plans. The 
first night we had a casualty, a painful wound in a doughboy's leg from the 
rifle of a sentry who cried halt and fired at the same time. An officer and 
party on a handcar had been rattling in from a visit to the front outguard. 
All the surrounding roads and trails were patrolled. 

Armed escorts went with British intelligence officers to outlying villages 
to assemble the peasants and tell them why the soldiers were coming into 
North Russia and enlist their civil co-operation and inspire them to enlist 
their young men in the Slavo-British Allied Legion, that is to put on brass 
buttoned khaki, eat British army rations, and drill for the day when they 
should go with the Allies to clear the country of the detested Bolsheviki. 
To the American doughboys it did not seem as though the peasants' wearied- 
of-war countenances showed much elation nor much inclination to join up. 

The inhabitants of Obozerskaya had fled for the most part before the 
Reds. Some of the men and women had been forced to go with the Red 
Guards. They now crept back into their villages, stolidly accepted the oc- 
cupancy of their homes by the Americans, hunted up their horses which they 
had driven into the wilderness to save them from the plundering Bolo, greased 
up their funny looking little droskies, or carts, and began hauling supplies 
for the Allied command and begging tobacco from the American soldiers. 

Captain Donoghue with two platoons of "K" Company, the other two 
having been dropped temporarily at Issaka Gorka to guard that railroad 
repair shop and wireless station, now moved right out by order of Colonel 
Guard, on September seventh, on a trail leading off toward Tiogra and 
Seletskoe. Somewhere in the wilds he would find traces of or might succor 
the handful of American sailors and Scots who, under Col. Hazelden, a 
British officer, had been cornered by the Red Guards. 

"Reece, reece," said the excited drosky driver as he greedily accepted 
his handful of driver's rations. He had not seen rice for three years. Thank- 
fully he took the food. His family left at home would also learn how to 
barter with the generous doughboy for his tobacco and bully beef and crack- 
ers, which at times, very rarely of course, in the advanced sectors, he was 
lucky enough to exchange for handfuls of vegetables that the old women 
plucked out of their caches in the rich black mould of the small garden, or 
from a cellar-like hole under a loose board in the log house. 

20 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI . 

"Guard duty at Archangel" was aiming now to be a real war, on a small 
scale but intensive. Obozerskaya, about one hundred miles south of Arch- 
angel, in a few days took on the appearance of an active field base for aggres- 
sive advance on the enemy. Here were the rapid assembling of fighting 
units; of transport and supply units; of railroad repairing crews, Russian, 
under British officers; of signals; of armored automobile, our nearest ap- 
proach to a tank, which stuck in the mud and broke through the frail Russki 
bridges and was useless; of the feverish clearing and smoothing of a land- 
ing field near the station for our supply of spavined air-planes that had 
already done their bit on the Western Front; of the improvement of our 
ferocious-looking armored train, with its coal-car mounted naval guns, but- 
tressed with sand bags and preceded by a similar car bristling with machine 
guns and Lewis automatics in the hands of a motley crew of Polish gunners 
and Russki gunners and a British sergeant or two. This armored train 
was under the command of the blue-coated, one-armed old commander 
Young, hero of the Zeebrugge Raid, who parked his train every night on 
the switch track next to the British Headquarters car, the Blue Car with 
the Union Jack flying over it and the whole Allied force. Secretly, he itched 
to get his armored train into point-blank engagement with the Bolshevik 
armored train. 

"All patrols must be aggressive," directed a secret order of Col. Guard, 
the British officer commanding this "A" Force on the railroad, "and it must 
be impressed on all ranks that we are fighting an offensive war, and not a 
defensive one, although for the time being it is the duty of everybody to 
get the present area in a sound state of defense. AH posts must be held 
to the last as we do not intend to give tip any ground which we have made 
good." 

And within a week after landing in Russia the American soldier was indeed 
making head on an offensive campaign, for on September 11th two platoons 
of "M" Company reconnoitering in force met a heavy force of Boles on 
similar mission and fought the first engagement with the Red Guards, driv- 
ing the Reds from the station at Verst 466 and taking possession of the 
bridge at Verst 464. 

We had ridden out past the outguard on the armored train, left it and pro- 
ceeded along the railway. Remember that first Bolo shell ? Well, yes. That 
thing far down the straight track three miles away Col. Guard, before going 
to the rear, derisively told Lieut. Danley could not be a Bolo armored 
train but was a sawmill smoke stack. Suddenly it flashed. Then came the 
distant boom. Came then the whining, twist-whistling shell that passed over 
us and showered shrapnel near the trenches where lay our reserves. He 
shortened his range but we hurried on and closed with his infantry with 
the decision in the American doughboy's favor in his first fight. He had 
learned that it takes many shrapnel shells and bullets to hit one man, that 
to be hit is not necessarily to be killed. 

A few days later "L" Company supported in the nick of time by two 
platoons of "I" Company repulsed a savage counter-attack staged by the 
Red Guards, September 16th, on a morning that followed the capture of a 

81 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

crashing Red bombing plane in the evening and the midnight conflagration 
in "L" Company's fortified camp that might have been misinterpreted as an 
evacuation by the Bolo. In this engagement Lieut. Gordon B. Reese and his 
platoon of "I" Company marked themselves with distinction by charging the 
Reds as a last resort when ammunition had been exhausted in a vain attempt 
to gain fire superiority against the overwhelming and enveloping Red line^- 
and gave the Bolshevik soldiers a sample of the fighting spirit of the Amer- 
icans. And the Reds broke and ran. Also our little graveyard of brave 
American soldiers at Obozerskaya began to grow. 

It was the evening before when the Bolo airmaflj who had dropped two 
small bombs at the Americans at Obozerskaya, was obliged to volplane to 
earth on the railroad near the 464 outguard. Major Young was there at 
the time. He declared the approaching bomb-plane by its markings was 
certainly an Allied plane, ordered the men not to discharge their Lewis gun 
which they had trained upon it, and as the Bolos hit the dirt two hundred 
yards away, he rushed out shouting his command, which afterwards became 
famous, "Don't fire ! We are Americans." But the Bolo did not pahnee- 
mahya and answered with his own Lewis gun sending the impetuous Amer- 
ican officer to cover where he lay even after the Bolo had darted into the 
woods and the doughboys ran up and pulled the moss off their battalion 
commander whom they thought had been killed by the short burst of the 
Bolo's automatic fire, as the major had not arisen to reply with his trusty 
six shooter. 

Meanwhile "K"' Company had met the enemy on the Seletskoe-Kodish 
front as will be related later, and plans were being laid for a converging 
attack by the 'Kodish, Onega and Railroad columns upon Plesetskaya. "L" 
Company was sent to support "K" Company and the Railroad Force marked 
time till the other two columns could get into position for the joint drive. 
Machine gun men and medical men coming to us from Archangel brought 
unverified stories of fighting far up the Dvina and Onega Rivers where the 
Bolshevik was gathering forces for a determined stand and had caused the 
digging of American graves and the sending back to Archangel of wounded 
men. This is told elsewhere. Our patrols daily kept in contact with Red 
Guard outposts on the railroad, occasionally bringing in wounded Bolos 
or deserters, who informed us of intrenchments and armored trains and 
augmenting Bolshevik regiments. 

Our Allied force of Cossacks proved unreliable and officer's patrols of 
Americans served better but owing to lack of maps or guides were able to 
gain but little information of the forest trails of the area. British intelligence 
officers depending on old forester's maps and on deserters and prisoners and 
neutral natives allowed the time for "Pat Rooney's work,'' personal recon- 
naissance, to go by till one day, September 28th, General Finlayson arrived 
at Obozerskaya in person at noon and peremptorily ordered an advance to 
be started that afternoon on the enemy's works at Versts 458 and 455. Col. 
Sutherland was caught unprepared but had to obey. 

Calling up one company of the resting! French troops under the veteran 
African fighter. Captain Alliez, for support, Col. Sutherland asked Major 

22 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

Young to divide his two American companies into two detachments for 
making the flank marches and attacks upon the Red positions. The marches 
were to be made to position in the afternoon and night and the attacks to 
be put on at dawn. The armored train and other guns manned by the 
Pbles were to give a barrage on the frontal positions as soon as the Amer- 
ican soldiers had opened their surprise flank and rear attacks. Then the 
Bolos were supposed to run away and a French company supported by a 
section of American machine guns and a "Hq." section that had been trained 
hastily into a Stokes mortar section, were to rush in and assist in consolidat- 
ing the positions gained. 

But this hurriedly contrived advance was doomed to failure before it 
started. There had not been proper preparations. The main force con- 
sisting of "M" Company and two platoons of "I" Company and a small 
detachment of Engineers to blow the track in rear of the Bolo position at 
455 was to march manyj miles by the flank in the afternoon and night but 
were not provided with even a map that showed anything but the merest 
outlines. The other detachment consisting of two remaining platoons of "I" 
Company were little better off only they had no such great distance to go. 
Both detachments after long hours were unable to reach the objective. 

This was so memorable a night march and so typical of the fall opera- 
tions everywhere that space has been allowed to describe it. No one had 
been over the proposed route of march ordered by Col. Sutherland. No 
Russian guide could be provided. We must follow the blazed trail of an 
east-and-west forest line till we came to a certain broad north-and-south 
cutting laid out in the days of Peter the Great. Down this cutting we were 
to march so many versts, told by the decaying old notched posts, till we 
passed the enemy's flank at 455, then turn in toward the railroad, camp for 
the night in the woods and attack him in the rear at 6 :00 a. m. 

At five o'clock in the afternoon the detachment struck into the woods. 
Lieut. Chantrill, the pleasant British intelligence ofiicer who acted as inter- 
preter, volunteered to go as guide although he had no familiarity with the 
swamp-infested forest area. It was dark long before we reached the broad 
cutting. No one will forget the ordeal of that night march. Could not see the 
man ahead of you. Ears told you he was tripping over fallen timber or slosh- 
ing in knee-deep bog hole. Hard breathing told the story of exertion. Only 
above and forward was there a faint streak of starlight that uncertainly 
led us on and on south toward the vicinity of the Bolo positions. 

Hours later we emerge from the woods cutting into a great marsh. Far 
in the dark on the other side we must hit the cutting in the heavy pine woods. 
For two hours we struggle on. We lose our direction. The marsh is a 
bog. To the right, to the left, in front the tantalizing optical illusion lures 
us on toward an apparently firmer footing. But ever the same, or worse, 
treacherous mire. We cannot stand a moment in a spot. We must flounder 
on. The column has to spread. Distress comes from every side. Men are 
down and groggy. Some one who is responsible for that body of men sweats 
blood and swears hatred to the muddler who is to blame. How clearly 

23 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

sounds the exhaust of the locomotives in the Bolo camp on the nearby rail- 
road. Will their outguards hear us? Courage, men, we must get on. 

This is a fine end. D that unverified old map the Colonel has. It 

did not show this lake that baffles our further struggles to advance. Detour 
of the unknown lake without a guide, especially in our present exhausted 
condition, is impossible. (Two weeks later with two Russian guides and 
American officers who had explored the way, we thought it a wonderful 
feat to thread our way around with a column). Judgment now dictates that 
it is best to retrace our steps and cut in at 461 to be in position to be of 
use in the reserve or in the consolidation. We have failed to reach our 
objective but it is not our fault. We followed orders and directions but 
they were faulty. It is a story that was to be duplicated over and over 
by one American force after another on the various fronts in the rainy fall 
season, operating under British officers who took desperate chances and 
acted on the theory that "You Americans," as Col. Sutherland said, "can 
do it somehow, you know." And as to numbers, why, "Ten Americans are 
as good as a hundred Bolos, aren't they?" 

But how shall we extricate ourselves? Who knows where the cutting 
may be found? Can staggering men again survive the treacherous morass? 
It is lighter now. We will pick our way better. But where is the cutting? 
Chantrill and the Captain despair. Have we missed it in, the dark? Then 
we are done for. Where is the "I" Co. detachment again? Lost? Here 
Corporal Grahek, and you, Sgt. Getzloff, you old woodsmen from north 
Michigan pines, scout around here and find the cutting and that rear party. 
Who is it that you men are carrying? 

No trace of the rear part of the column nor of the cutting! One thing 
remains to do. We must risk a shout, though the Reds may hear. 
"Danley ! eeyohoh !" 
"Yes, h-e-e-e-r-r-e on the c-u-t-t-i-n-g !" 

Did ever the straight and narrow way seem so good. The column is 
soon united again and the back trail despondingly begun. Daylight of a 
Sunday morning aids our footsteps. We cross again the stream we had 
waded waist deep in the pitch dark and wondered that no one had been 
drowned. 

Zero hour arrives and we listen to the artillery of both sides and for 
the rat-tat-tat of the Bolo machine guns when our forces move on the 
bridgehead. We hurry on. The battle is joined. Pine woods roar and 
reverberate with roar. By taking a nearer blazed trail we may come out to 
the railway somewhere near the battle line. 

At 8:40 a. m. we emerge from the woods near our armored train. At 
field headquarters. Major Nichols, who in the thick of the battle has arrived 
to relieve Major Young, orders every man at once to be made as comfort- 
able as possible. Men build fires and warm and dry their clammy water- 
soaked feet, picture of which is shown in this volume. Bully and tea and 
hard tack revive a good many. It is well they do, for the fight is going 
against us and two detachments of volunteers from these men are soon to 
be asked for to go forward to the battle line. 

S4 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

Considerable detail has been given about this march of "I" and "M" 
because the writer was familiar with it, but a similar story might be told 
of "H" in the swamps on the Onega, or of "K" or "L" and "M. G." at 
Kodish, or of "A," "B," "C" or "D" on the River Fronts, and with equal 
praise for the hardihood of the American doughboy hopelessly mired in 
swamps and lost in the dense forests, baffled in' his attempts because of no 
fault of his own, but ready after an hour's rest to go at it again, asi in this 
case when a volunteer platoon went forward to support' the badly suffering 
line. The Red Guards composed of the Letts and sailors were fiercely 
counter-attacking and threatening to sweep back the line and capture field- 
headquarters. 

During the preceding hours the French company had pressed in gallantly 
after the artillery and machine gun barrage and captured the bridgehead, 
and, supported by the American machine gun men and the trench mortar men, 
had taken the Bolo's first trench line, seeking to consoUdate the position. 

Lieut. Keith of "Hq." Company with twenty-one men and three Stokes 
mortars had gone through the woods and taking a lucky direction, 
avoided the swamp and cut in to the railroad, arriving in the 
morning just after the barrage and the French infantry attack had driven the 
Reds from their first line. They took possession of three Bolshevik shacks and 
a German machine gun, using hand grenades in driving the Reds out. Then 
they placed their trench mortars in position to meet the Bolo counter-attack. 

The Bolos came in on the left flank under cover of the woods, the French 
infantry at that time being on the right flank in the woods, and two platoons 
of Americans being lost somewhere on the left in the swamp. This counter- 
attack of the Reds was repulsed by the trench mortar boys who, however, 
found themselves at the end of the attack with no more ammunition for 
their mortars, Col. Sutherland not having provided for the sending of re- 
serve ammunition to the mortars from Obozerskaya. Consequently the sec- 
ond attack of the; Reds was waited with anxiety. The Reds were in great 
force and well led. They came in at a new angle and divided the Americans 
and French, completely overwhelming the trench mortar men's rifle fire and 
putting Costello's valiant machine guns out of action, too. Lieut Keith was 
severely wounded, one man was killed, four wounded and three missing. Sgt. 
Kolbe and Pvt. Driscoll after prodigies of valor with their machine guns were 
obliged to fall back with the French. Kolbe was severely wounded. So the 
Bolo yells that day sounded in triumph as they won back their positions 
from the Americans and French. 

The writer knows, for he heard those hellish yells. Under cover of the 
single "M" Company platoon rushed up to the bridge, the Americans and 
French whose gallant efforts had gone for naught because Col. Sutherland's 
battle plan was a "dud," retired to field headquarters at 461. A half platoon 
of "I" men hurried up to support. The veteran Alliez encouraged the Amer- 
ican officer. Captain Moore, to hang on to the bridge. Lieut. Spitler cnme on 
with a machine gun and the position was consolidated and held in spite of 
heavy shelling by the Bolo armored trainsi and his desperate raids at night 
and in the morning, for the purpose of destroying the bridge. His high 

25 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

explosive tore up the track but did no damage to the bridge. His infantry 
recoiled from the Lewis gun and machine gun fire of the Americans that 
covered the bridge and its approaches. 

The day's operations had been costly. The French had lost eight, killed 
and wounded and missing. The Americans had lost four killed, fourteen 
wounded, among whom were Lieuts. Lawrence Keith and James R. Donovan, 
and five missing. Many of these casualties were suffered by the resolute 
platoon at the bridge. There Lieut. Donovan was caught by machine gun fire 
and a private by shrapnel from a searching barrage of the Bolos, as was also 
a sergeant of "F" Company who was attached for observation. But the .nght 
others who were wounded, two of them mortally, owed their unfortunate 
condition to the altogether unnecessary and ill-advised attempt by Col. Suther- 
land to shell the bridge which was being held by his own troops. He had the 
panicky idea that the Red Guards were coming or going to come across that 
bridge and ordered the shrapnel which cut up the platoon of "M" Company 
with its hail of lead instead of the Reds who had halted 700 yards away and 
themselves were shelling the bridge but to no effect. Not only that but 
when Col. Sutherland was informed that his artillery was getting his own 
troops, he first asked on one telephone for another quart of whisky and 
later called up his artillery officer and ordered the deadly fire to lengthen 
range. This was observed by an American soldier, Ernest Roleau, at Verst 
466, who acted as interpreter and orderly in Sutherland's headquarters that 
day. 

The British officer sadly retired to his Blue Car headquarters at Verst 
466, thinking the Reds would surely recapture the bridge. But Major 
Nichols in command at field headquarters at Verst 461 thought differently. 
When the order came over the wire for him to withdraw his Americans 
from the bridge, this infantry reserve officer whose previously most desperate 
battle, outside of a melee between the Bulls and Bears on Wall Street, had 
been to mashie nib out of a double bunkered trap on the Detroit Country 
Club golf course, as usual with him, took "plenty of sand." He shoved 
the order to one side till he heard from the officer at the front and then 
requested a countermanding order. He made use of the veteran Alliez's 
counsel. And for two dubious nights and days with "M" and "I" Com- 
panies he held on to the scant three miles of advance which had been paid 
for so dearly. And the Reds never did get back the important bridge. 

Now it was evident that the Bolshevik rear-guard action was not to be 
scared out. It was bent on regaining its ground. During these last Septem- 
ber days of supposed converging drive in three columns on Plesetskaya our 
widely separated forces had all met with stiff resistance and been worsted 
in action. The Bolshevik had earned our respect as a fighter. More fighting 
units were hurried up. Our "A" Force Command began careful reconnais- 
sance and plans of advance. American officers and doughboys had their 
first experiences, of the many experiences to follow, of taking out Russian 
guides and from their own observations and the crude old maps and from 
doubtful hearsay to piece together a workable military sketch of the densely 
forested area. 



26 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

Artillery actions and patrol actions were almost daily diet till, with the 
advance two weeks later on October thirteenth, the offensive movement 
started again. This time French and Americans closely co-operated. The 
Reds evidently had some inkling of it, for on the morning when the amal- 
gamated "M"-"Boyer" force entered the woods, inside fifteen minutes the 
long, thin column of horizon blue and olive drab was under shrapnel fire of 
the Bolo. With careful march this force gained the flank and rear of the 
enemy at Verst 455, and camped in a hollow square, munched on hardtack 
and slept on their arms in the cold rain. Lieut. Stoner, Capt. Boyer, the irre- 
pressible French fun-maker, Capt. Moore and Lieut. Giffels slept on the same 
patch of wet moss with the same log for a pillow, unregardful of the TNT 
in the Engineer officer's pocket, which was for use the next morning in 
blowing the enemy's armored train. 

At last 5 :00 a. m. comes but it is still dark and foggy. Men stretch their 
cold and cramped limbs after the interminable night. No smokes. No eats. 
In ten minutes of whispering the columns are under way. The leading 
platoon gets out of our reach. Delay while we get a new guide lets them 
get on ahead of the other platoons. Too bad. It spoils the plan. The main 
part of the attacking forces can not press forward fast enough to catch up. 
The engineers will be too late to blow the track in rear of the Bolo train. 

The Red Guard listening posts and his big tower on the flank now stand 
him in good stead. He sees the little platoon of Franco-Americans approach- 
ing in line, and sends out a superior force to meet the attack. Ten minutes 
of stiff fire fight ensues during which the other attacking platoons strive to 
get up to their positions in rear and rear flank. But our comrades are evi- 
dently out-numbered and being worsted. We must spring our attack to save 
them. 

Oh, those bugles! Who ever heard of a half mile charge? And such a 
melee. Firing and yelling and tooting like ten thousand the main party 
goes in. What would the first "old man" of the 339th, our beloved Colonel 
John W. Craig, have said at sight of that confused swarm of soldiers head- 
ing straight for the Bolo positions. Lucky for us the Bolo does not hold his 
fire till we swarm out of the woods. As it is ill his panic he blazes away 
into the woods pointblank with his artillery mounted on the trains and with 
his machine guns, two of which only are on ground positions. And his 
excited aim is characteristically high, Slavo Bogga. We surge in. He 
jumps to his troop trains, tries to cover his withdrawal by the two machine 
guns, and gets away, but with hundreds of casualties from our fire that we 
pour into the moving trains. Marvellous luck, we have monkeyed with a 
buzz saw and suffered only slight casualties, one American killed and four 
wounded. Two French wounded. 

The surprise at 455 threw "the wind" up the Bolo's back at his forward 
positions, 457 and 457J^ and Lieuts. Primm and Soyer's amalgamated French- 
American attacking party won a quick victory. The armored train came on 
through over the precious bridge at Verst 458, the track was repaired and 
our artillery came up to 455 and answered the Red armored train that was 
shelling us while we consolidated the position. Lieut. Anselmi's resolute 

27 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

American signal men unmindful of the straggling Bolos who were working 
south in the woods along the railroad, "ran" the railway telephone lines back 
to field headquarters at 458 and established communications with Major 

Nichols. 

As soon as transportation was open "I" Company and Apsche's company 
of French moved up and went on through to battle the Reds in the same 
afternoon out of their position at Verst 450 where they had rallied and to 
advance on the fifteenth to a position at 448, where the Americans dug in. 
Trouble with the French battalion was brewing for the British Command. 
The poilus had heard of the proposed armistice on the Western Front. "La 
guerre finis," they declared, and refused to remain with "I" Company on 
the line. 

So on October sixteenth this company found itself single-handed holding 
the advanced position against the counter-attack of the reinforced Reds. 
After a severe artillery barrage of the Reds, Captain Winslow pushed for- 
ward to meet the attack of the Bolos and fought a drawn battle with them 
in the woods in the afternoon. Both sides dug in. "I" Company lost one 
killed and four wounded. 

Meanwhile "M" Company, after one day to reorganize and rest, hurried 
up during the afternoon fight and prepared to relieve "I" Company. Sleep- 
ing on their arms around the dull-burning fires at 448 between noisy periods 
of night exchanges of fire by the Americans and Red Guards, this company 
next morning at 6:00 a. m. went through under a rolling barrage of Major 
Lee's artillery, which had been .able to improve its position during the night, 
thanks to the resolute work of Lieut. Giffels and his American Engineers on 
the railroad track. Stoner's platoon destroyed the heavy outpost of Bolos 
with a sharp fire fight and a charge and swept on, only halting when he 
reached a large stream. Beyond this was a half-mile square clearing with 
characteristic woodpiles and station and woodmen's houses, occupied by a 
heavy force of six hundred Red Guards, themselves preparing for attack on 
the Americans. Here Captain Moore timed his three platoons and Lieut. Spit- 
ler's machine guns for a rush on three sides with intent to gain a foothold at 
least within the clearing. The very impetuosity of the doughboy's noisy attack 
struck panic into the poorly led Bolsheviks and they won an easy victory, 
having possession of the position inside half an hour. The Reds were routed 
and pursued beyond the objectives set by Col. Sutherland. And the old 
company horse shoe again worked. Though many men had their clothes 
riddled not a man was scratched. 

The position was consolidated. An hour after the engagement two sec- 
tions of the French Company that had sulked the preceding day came smil- 
ingly up and helped fortify the flanks. Their beloved old battalion com- 
mander. Major Alabernarde, had shamed them out of their mutinous conduct 
and they were satisfied again to help their much admired American comrades 
in this strange, faraway side show of the great world war. 

One or two interesting reminiscences here crowd in. It was during the 
charge on 445 that Lieut. Stoner missed a dugout door by a foot with his hand 
grenade and his tender heart near froze with horror an hour afterward when 

28 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

he came back from pursuit of the Reds to find that with the one Bolo soldier 
ill the dugout were cowering twenty-seven women and children, one eight days 
old. The red-whiskered old Bolo soldier had a hand grenade in his pocket and 
Sergeant Dundon nearly shook his yellow teeth loose trying to make him 
reply to questions in English. And the poor varlet nearly expired with 
terror later in the day when Lieut. Riis of the American Embassy stood him 
up with his back against a shack. "Comrades, have mercy on me ! My wife 
and my children," he begged as he fell on his knees before the click of the 
camera. , 

Another good story was often told about the alleged "Bolo Spy Dog 
Patrols" first discovered when the British officer led his Royal Scots, most 
of them raw Russian recruits, to the front posts at 445 to reinforce "M" 
Co. "Old Ruble" had been a familiar sight to the Americans. At this time 
he had picked up a couple of cur buddies, and was staying with the Amer- 
icans at the front, having perpetual pass good at any part of the four-square 
outpost. But the British officer reported him to the American officer as a 
sure-enough trained Bolshevik patrol dog and threatened to shoot him. And 
at four o'clock the next morning they did fire at the dogs and started up the 
nervous Red Guards into machine gun fire from their not distant trench line 
and brought everyone out to man our lines for defense. And the heavy 
ertemy shelling cut up Scots (Russians) as well as Americans. 

Here the fall advance on the Archangel- Vologda Railway ended. We 
were a few versts north of Emtsa, but "mnoga, mnoga versts," many versts, 
distant from Vologda, the objective picked by General Poole for this handful 
of men. Emtsa was a railroad repair shop village. We wanted it. General 
Ironside who relieved Poole, however, had issued a general order to hold 
up further advances on all the fronts. So we dug in. Winter would soon 
be on, anyway. 

The Red Guards, however, meant to punish us for the capture of this 
position. He thoroughly and savagely shelled the position repeatedly and 
the British artillery moved up as the Yankee engineers restored the destroyed 
railroad track and duelled daily with the very efficient Red artillery. We 
have to admit that with his knowledge of' the area the Red artillery officer 
had the best of the strategy and the shooting. He had the most guns too. 

Major Nichols was heard to remark the day after he had been through 
the severe six gun barrage of the Reds who poured their wrath on the 
Americans at 445 before they could but more thari get slight shrapnel shel- 
ters made, and had suffered four casualties, and the Royal Scots had lost 
a fine Scotch lieutenant and two Russian soldiers. "This shelling of course 
would be small peanuts to the French and British soldiers who were on the 
Western Front, but to us Americans fresh from the fields and city offices 
and shops of Michigan it is a little hell." And so the digging was good at 
445 during the last of October and the first of November while Major Nichols 
with "M" and "I" and French and American machine gun sections held this 
front. 

On the fourth of November "I" Company supported by the French ma- 
chine gunners sustained a terrific attack by the Reds in powerful force, re- 

S9 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

pulsed them finally after several hours, with great losses, and gained from 
General Ironside a telegram of congratulations. 'T' Co. lost one killed, one 
missing, two wounded, one of which was Lieut. Reese. After that big attack 
the enemy left us in possession and we began to fear winter as much as we did 
the enemy. The only event that broke the routine of patrols and artillery duels 
was the accidental bombing by our Allied airplane of our position instead 
of the half-mile distant enemy trenches, one of the two 112-lb. bombs taking 
the life of Floyd Sickles, "M" Company's barber and wounding another 
soldier. 

Amusing things also are recalled. The American medical officer at the 
front line one morning looked at a French soldier who seemed to be coming 
down with a heavy cold and generously doped him up with hot water and 
whiskey. Next morning the whole machine gun section of French were on 
sick call. But Collins was wise, and perhaps his bottle was empty. 

One day a big, husky Yank in "I" Company was brokenly "parlevooing" 
with a little French gunner, who was seen to leap excitedly into the air and 
drape himself about the doughboy's neck exclaiming with joy, "My son, 
my son, my dear sister's son." This is the truth. And he took the Yank 
over to his dugout for a celebration of this strange family meeting, filled 
him up with sour wine, and his pockets with pictures of dancing girls. 

Of course we were to learn to our discomfort and peril that winter was 
the time chosen by Trotsky for his counter-offensive against the AlHed forces 
in the North. Of that winter campaign we shall tell in later chapters. We 
leave the Americans now on the railroad associated with their French com- 
rades and 310th Engineers building blockhouses for defense and quarters 
to keep warm. 



30 



Ill 

River Push Foe, Kotlas 

First Battalion Hurries Up The River — We Take Chamova — The Lay 
Of The River Land — Battling For Seltso — Retire To Yakovlevskob — 
That Most Wonderful Smoke — Incidents Of The March — Sudden 
Shift To Shenkursk Area — The Battalion Splits — Again At Seltso 
— BoLos Attack — Edvyinson A Hero. 

That dismal, gloomy day — September 6, 1918 — the first battalion, under 
Lt.-Col. James Corbley, spent on board transport, watching the third 
battalion disembark and getting on board the freight cars that were to 
carry them down to the Railroad Front. Each man on board was aching 
to set foot on dry land once more and would gladly have marched to any 
front in order to avoid the dull monotony aboard ship, with nothing of 
interest to view but the gleaming spires of the cathedrals or the cold, gray 
northern sky, but there is an end to all such trials, and late that evening 
we received word that our battalion was to embark on several river barges 
to proceed up the Dvina River. 

The following day all hands turned to bright and early and from early 
dawn until late that afternoon every man that was able to stand, and some 
that were not, were busily engaged in making up packs, issuing ammunition 
and loading up the barges. By six o'clock that evening they had marched 
on board the barges — some of the men in the first stages of "flu" had 
to be assisted on board with their packs. These barges, as we afterward 
learned, were a good example of the Russian idea of sanitation and cleanli- 
ness. They had been previously used for hauling coal, cattle, produce, flax, 
and a thousand-and-one other things, and in their years of usage had accumu- 
lated an unbelievable amount of filth and dirt. In addition to all this, they 
were leaky, and the lower holds, where hundreds of men had to sleep that 
week, were cold, dismal and damp. Small wonder that our little force was 
daily decreased by sickness and death. After five days of this slow, 
monotonous means of travel, we finally arrived at the town of Beresnik, 
which afterward became the base for the river column troops. 

The following day "A" Company, 339th Infantry, under Capt. Otto 
Odjard, took over the defense of the village in order to relieve a detach- 
ment of Royal Scots who were occupying the town. All that day we saw 
and heard the dull roar of the artillery further up the river, where the 
Royal Scots, accompanied by a gunboat, were attempting to drive the enemy 
before them. Meeting with considerable opposition in the vicinity of 
Chamova, a village about fifty versts from Beresnik, a rush call was sent 
in for American reinforcements. 

The first battalion of the 339th Infantry left Beresnik about September 
15th under command of Major Corbley, and started up the Dvina. The first 
incident worthy of record occurred at Chamova. As advance company we 
arrived about 1 :00 a. m. at Chamova, which was garrisoned by a small force 

31 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

of Scots. We put out our outposts in the brush which surrounded the 
town, and shortly afterward, about 5:00 a. m., we were alarmed by the 
sound of musketry near the river bank. We deployed and advanced to 
what seemed to be a small party from a gunboat. They had killed two 
Scots who had mistaken them for a supply boat from Beresnik and gone to 
meet them emptj'-handed. The Bolo had regained his boat after a little 
firing between him and the second platoon which was at the upper end of 
the village. We were trying to locate oars for the clumsy Russian barzhaks 
on the bank, intending to cross to the island where the gunboat was moored 
and do a little navy work, when the British monitor hove into sight around 
a bend about three miles down stream, and opened fire on the gunboat. 
The first shot was a little long, the second a little short, and the third was 
a clean hit amidship which set the gunboat on fire. John Bolo in the 
meantime took a hasty departure by way of the island. We were immensely 
disappointed by the advent of the monitor, as the gunboat would have been 
very handy in navigating the Russian roads. 

This Monitor, by the way, was much feared by the Russians, but was 
very temperamental, and if it was sadly needed, as it was later at Toulgas 
when we were badly outranged, it reposed calmly at Beresnik. When the 
Monitor first made its advent on the Dvina she steamed into Beresnik, 
and her commander inquired loftily, "Where are the bloody Bolsheviks, and 
which is the way to Kotlas?" Upon being informed she steamed boldly 
up the Dvina on the road to Kotlas, found the Bolo, who promptly slapped 
a shell into their internal workings, killing several men and putting the 
Monitor temporarily hors de combat. After that the Monitor was very 
prudent and displayed no especial longing to visit Kotlas. 

In order to better comprehend the situation and terrain of the river 
forces, a few words regarding the two rivers and their surroundings will not 
be without interest. This region is composed of vast tundras or marshes 
and the balance of the entire province is covered with almost impenetrable 
forests of pine and evergreen of different varieties. The tundras or marshes 
are very treacherous, for the traveler marching along on what appears to 
be a rough strip of solid ground, suddenly may feel the same give way and 
he is precipitated into a bath of ice cold muddy water. Great areas of these 
tundras are nothing more than a thickly woven matting of grasses and 
weeds overgrowing creeks or ponds and many a lonely traveler has been 
known to disappear in one of these marshes never to be seen again. 

This condition is especially typical of the Dvina River. The Dvina is 
a much larger river than the Vaga and compares favorably to the lower 
Mississippi in our own country. It meanders and spreads about over the 
surrounding country by a thousand different routes, inasmuch as there are 
practically no banks and nothing to hold it within its course. The Vaga, 
on the other hand, is a narrower and swifter river and much more attractive 
and interesting. It has very few islands and is lined on either side by com- 
paratively steep bluffs, varying from fifty to one hundred feet in height. The 
villages which line the banks are larger and comparatively more prosperous, 
but regarding the villages more will be said later. 




A Shell Screeched Over This Burial Scene 



L. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO 




Vickers Machine Gun Helping Hold Lines 



U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO 




Our Armored Train 



U S OFFICIf L PHOTO 




Fird lialtaUon Hurries Up Rin 




Lonely Post in Dense Forest 



RED CROSS PHOTO 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIK I 

We continued our march up the Dvina, about two days behind the fleeing 
Bolo, hoping that he would decide to make a stand. This he did at Seltso. 
On the morning of September 19th, through mud and water, at times waist 
deep and too precarious for hauling artillery, the advance began on Seltso. 
At 1 :00 p. m. the advance party, "D" Company, under Captain Coleman, 
reached Yakovlevskaya, a village just north of Seltso and separated from 
it by a mile of wide open marsh which is crossed by a meandering arm of 
the nearby Dvina. A single road and bridge lead across to Seltso. "D" 
Company gallantly deployed and wading the swamp approached within one 
thousand five hundred yards of the enemy, who suddenly opened up with 
machine guns, rifles, and Russian pom pom. This latter gun is a rapid fire 
artillery piece, firing a clip of five shells weighing about one pound apiece, 
in rapid succession. We later discovered that they, as well as most of the 
flimsy rifles, were made by several of the prominent gun manufacturers of 
the United States. 

"D" Company found further advance impossible without support and 
dug in. "C" Company under Capt. Fitz Simmons hurried up and took position 
in a tongue of woods at the right of "D" and were joined after dark by 
"B" Company. None of the officers in command of this movement knew 
anything of the geography nor much of anything else regarding this position, 
so the men were compelled to dig in as best they could in the mud and 
water to await orders from Colonel Corbley, who had not come up. At 
eleven o'clock that night a drizzling rain set in, and huddled and crouched 
together in this vile morass, unprotected by even an overcoat, without 
rations, tired and exhausted from the day's march and fighting, the battalion 
bivouacked. All night the enemy kept searching the woods and marshes 
with his artillery, but with little effect. During the night we learned that 
the Bolo had a land battery of three-inch guns and five gunboats in the 
river at their flank with six and nine-inch guns aboard rafts. This was none 
too pleasing a situation for an infantry attack with no artillery preparation, 
coupled with the miserable condition of the troops. 

As daylight approached the shelling became more and more violent. The 
Bolo was sending over everything at his command and it was decided to 
continue the attack lest we be exterminated by the enemy artillery. At 
daybreak Lt. Dressing of "B" Company took out a reconnaissance patrol 
to feel out the enemy lines of defense, but owing to the nature of the 
ground he had little success. His patrol ran into a Bolo outpost and was 
scattered by machine gun fire. It was here that Corporal Shroeder was lost, 
no trace ever being found of his body or equipment. 

About noon two platoons of Company "B" went out to occupy a certain 
objective. This they found was a well constructed trench system filled 
with Bolos, and flanked by machine gun positions. In the ensuing action 
we had three men killed and eight men wounded, including Lt. A. M. Smith, 
who received a severe wound in the side, but continued handling his platoon 
eflFectively, showing exceptional fortitude. The battle continued during 
the afternoon all along the line. "C" and "D" were supporting "B" with 
as much fire as possible. But troops could not stay where they were under 

33 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

the enemy fire, and Col. Corbley, who had at last arrived, ordered a frontal 
attack to come off after a preparatory barrage by our Russian artillery 
which had at last toiled up to a position. 

Here fortune favored the Americans. The Russian artillery officer 
placed a beautiful barrage upon the village and the enemy gunboats, which 
continued from 4 :45 to 5 :00 p. m. At 5 :00 o'clock, the zero hour, the 
infantry made the attack and in less than an hour's time they had gained 
the village. 

The Bolsheviks had been preparing to evacuate anyway, as the per- 
sistence of our attack and effectiveness of our rifle fire had nearly broken 
their morale. Americans with white, strained faces, in contrast with their 
muck-daubed uniforms, shook hands prayerfully as they discussed how a 
determined defense could have murdered them all in making that frontal 
attack across a swamp in face of well-set machine gun positions. 

However, the Americans were scarcely better off when they had taken 
Seltso, for their artillery now could not get up to them. So the enemy 
gunboats could shell Seltso at will. Hence it appeared wise to retire for a 
few days to Yakovlevskaya. In the early hours of the morning following 
the battle the Americans retired from Seltso. They were exceedingly 
hungry, dog-tired, sore in spirit, but they had undergone their baptism 
of fire. 

After a few days spent in Yakovlevskoe we set out again, and advanced 
as far as a village called Pouchuga. Here we expected another encounter 
with the Bolo, but he had just left when we arrived. We were fallen out 
temporarily on a muddy Russian hillside in the middle of the afternoon, 
the rain was falling steadily, we had been marching for a week through 
the muddiest mud that ever was, the rations were hard tack and bully, and 
tobacco had been out for several weeks. A more miserable looking and 
feeling outfit can scarce be imagined. A bedraggled looking convoy of 
Russian carts under Lt. Warner came up, and he informed us that he could 
let us have one package of cigarettes per man. We accepted his offer with- 
out arty reluctance, and passed them out. To paraphrase Gunga Din, says 
Capt. Boyd : 

"They were British and they stunk as any one who smoked British 
issue cigarettes with forty-two medals can tell you, but of all the smokes 
I've (I should say 'smunk' to continue the paraphrase) I'm gratefulest 
to those from Lt. Warner. You could see man after man light his 
cigarette, take a long draw, and relax in unadulterated enjoyment. Ten 
minutes later they were a different outfit, and nowhere as wet, cold, tired 
or hungry. Lucy Page Gaston and the Anti-Cigarette League please 
note." 

After a long day's march we finally arrived in a "suburb" of Pouchuga 
about 7 :00 p. m. with orders to place our outposts and remain there that 
night. By nine o'clock this was done, and the rest of the company was 
scattered in billets all over the village, being so tired that they flopped in 
the first place where there was floor space to spread a blanket. Then came 
an order to march to the main village and join Major Corbley. At least a 

34 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

dozen of the men could not get their shoes on by reason of their feet being 
swollen, but we finally set out on a pitch black night through the thick mud. 
We staggered on, every man falling full length in the mud innumerable 
times, and finally reached our destination. Captain Boyd writes : 

"I shall never forget poor Wilson on that march, cheery and good- 
spirited in spite of everything. His loss later at Toulgas was a personal 
one as well as the loss of a good soldier. 

"I also remember Babcock on that march — Babcock, who was one of 
our best machine gunners, never complaining and always dependable. 
We were ploughing along through the mud when from my place at 
the head of the column I heard a splash. I went back to investigate 
and there was Babcock floundering in a ditch with sides too slippery to 
crawl up. The column was marching stolidly past, each man with but 
one thought, to pull his foot out of the mud and put it in a little farther 
on. We finally got Babcock up to terra firma, he explained that it had 
looked like good walking, nice and smooth, and he had gone down to 
try it. I cautioned him that he should never try to take a bath while 
in miUtary formation, and he seemed to think the advice was sound." 

Now the battalion was needed over on the Vaga river front, the story of 
whose advance there is told in another chapter. By barge the Americans 
went down the Dvina to its junction with the Vaga and then proceeded up 
that river as far as Shenkursk. To the doughboys this upper Vaga area 
seemed a veritable land of milk and honey when compared with the miser- 
able upper Dvina area. Fresh meat and eggs were obtainable. There were 
even women there who wore hats and stockings, in place of boots and shawls. 
We had comfortable billets. But it was too good to be true. In less than 
a week the Bolo's renewed activities on the upper Dvina made it necessary 
for one company of the first battalion to go again to that area. Colonel 
Corbley saw "B" Company depart on the tug "Retvizan" and so far as field 
activities were concerned it was to be part of the British forces on the Dvina 
from October till April rather than part of the first battalion force. The 
company commander was to be drafted as "left bank" commander of a mixed 
force and hold Toulgas those long, long months. The only help he remem- 
bers from Colonel Corbley or Colonel Stewart in the field operations was a 
single visit from each, the one to examine his company fund book, the 
other to visit the troops on the line in obedience to orders from Washington 
and General Ironside. Of this visit Captain Boyd writes: 

"When Col. Stewart made his trip to Toulgas his advent was marked 
principally by his losing one of his mittens, which were the ordinary 
issue variety. He searched everywhere, and half insinuated that Capt. 
Dean, my adjutant, a British officer, had taken it. I could see Dean get- 
ting hot under the collar. Then he told me that my orderly must have 
taken it. I knew Adamson was more honest than either myself or the 
colonel, and that made me hot. Then he finally found the mitten where 
he had dropped it, on the porch, and everything was serene again. 

"Col. Stewart went with me up to one of the forward blockhouses, 
which at that time was manned by the Scots. After the stock questions 
of 'where are you from' and 'what did you do in civil life' he launched 
into a dissertation on the disadvantages of serving in an allied command. 
The Scot looked at him in surprise and said, 'Why, sir, we've been very 

35 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

glad to serve with the Americans, sir, and especially under Lt. Dennis. 
There's an officer any man would be proud to serve under.' That ended 
the discussion." 

After this slight digression from the narrative, we may take up the thread 
of the story of this push for Kotlas. Royal Scots and Russians had been left 
in quiet possession of the upper Dvina near Seltso after the struggle already 
related. But hard pressed again, they were waiting the arrival of the com- 
pany of Americans, who arrived one morning about 6 :00 a. m. a few miles 
below our old friend, the village of Yakovlevskoe. We marched to the 
village, reported to the British officer in command at Seltso, and received 
the order, "Come over here as quick as you possibly can." The situation 
there was as follows: The Bolos had come back down the river in force 
with gunboats and artillery, and were making it exceedingly uncomfortable 
for the small British garrisons at Seltso and Borok across the river. We 
marched around the town, through swamps at times almost waist deep, and 
attacked the Bolo trenches from the flank at dusk. We were successful, 
driving them back, and capturing a good bit of supplies, including machine 
guns and a pom pom. The Bolos lost two officers and twenty-seven men 
killed, while we had two men slightly wounded, both of whom were later 
able to rejoin the company. 

"We expected a counter attack from the Bolo, as our force was much 
smaller than his, and spent the first part of the night making trenches. An 
excavation deeper than eighteen inches would have water in the bottom. We 
were very cold, as it was October in Russia, and every man wet to the skin, 
with no blankets or overcoats. About midnight the British sent up two jugs 
of rum, which was immediately issued, contrary to military regulations. 
It made about two swallows per man, but was a lifesaver. At least a dozen 
men told me that they could not sleep before that because they were so 
cold, but that this started their circulation enough so they were able to 
sleep later. 

In the morning we advanced to Lipovit and attacked there, but ran into a 
jam, had both flanks turned by a much larger force, and were very fortunate 
to get out with only one casualty. Corporal Downs lost his eye, and showed 
extreme grit in the hard march back through the swamp, never complaining. 
I saw, after returning to the States, an interview with Col. Josselyn, at that 
time in command of the Dvina force, in which he mentioned Downs, and 
commended him very highly." 

The ensuing week we spent in Seltso, the Bolos occupying trenches around 
the upper part of our defenses. They had gunboats and naval guns on rafts, 
and made it quite uncomfortable for us with their shelling, although the only 
American casualties were in the detachment of 310th Engineers. Our vic- 
tory was short lived, however, for in a few days our river monitor Was 
forced to return to Archangel on account of the rapidly receding river, 
which gave the enemy the opportunity of moving up their 9.2 inch naval guns, 
with double the range of our land batteries, making our further occupation 
Df Seltso impossible. 

36 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIK I 

On the afternoon of October 14, the second and third platoons of Com- 
pany "B" were occupying the blockhouses when the Bolos made an attack, 
which was easily repelled. As we were under artillery fire with no means 
of replying, the British commander decided to evacuate that night. It was 
impossible to get supplies out owing to the lack of transportation facilities. 
That part of Company "B" in the village left at midnight, followed by the 
force in the blockhouses at 3:00 a. m. After a very hard march we reached 
Toulgas and established a position there. 

Our position at Toulgas in the beginning was very unfavorable, being 
a long narrow string of villages along the. Dvina which was bordered with 
thick underbrush extending a few hundred yards to the woods. We had a 
string of machine gun posts scattered through the brush, and when our line 
of defense was occupied there was less than two platoons left as a reserve. 
With us at this time we had Company "A" of the 2nd Tenth Royal Scots 
(British) under Captain Shute, and a section of Canadian artillery. 

The Bolos followed us here and after several days shelling, to which 
because of being outranged we were unable to reply, they attacked late in 
the afternoon of October 23rd. Our outposts held, and we immediately 
counter attacked. The enemy was repulsed in disorder, losing some machine 
guns, and having about one hundred casualties, while we came out Scot 
free. 

It was during the shelling incidental to this that Edvinson, the Viking, 
did his stunt. He was in a machine gun emplacement which was hit by a 
small H. E. shell. The others were considerably shaken up, and pulled back, 
reporting Edvinson killed, that he had gone up in the air one way, and the 
Lewis gun the other. We established the post a little farther back and went 
out at dusk to get Edvinson's body. Much was the surprise of the party 
when he hailed them with, "Well, I think she's all right." He had col- 
lected himself, retrieved the Lewis gun, taken it apart and cleaned it and 
stuck to his post. The shelling and sniping here had been quite heavy. 
His action was recognized by the British, who awarded him a Military Medal, 
just as they did Corporal Morrow who was instrumental in reoccupying and 
holding an important post which had been driven in early in the engage- 
ment. Corporal Dreskey and Private Lintula also distinguished themselves 
at this point. 

Here we may leave "B" Company and the Scots and Russians making a 
fortress of Toulgas on the left bank of the Dvina. The Reds were busy 
defending Plesetskaya from a converging attack and not till snow clouds 
gathered in the northern skies were they to gather up a heavy force to attack 
Toulgas. We will now turn to the story of the first battalion penetrating 
with bayonets far up the Vaga River. 



37 



IV 

Doughboys on Guakd in Archangel 

Second Battajlion Lands To Protect Diplomatic Corps — Colonel Tschap- 
lin's Coup d'Etat Is Undone By Ambassador Francts — Doughboys 
Parade And Practice New Weapons — Scowling Solombola Sailors — 
Description Of Archangel — American Headquarters. 

With the arrival of the American Expeditionary Force, the diplomatic 
corps of the various Allied nations which had been compelled to flee north 
before the Red radicals that had overthrown the Kerensky provisional 
government, asked for troops in the city of Archangel itself to stabilize the 
situation. 

The second battalion of the 339th under command of Major J. Brooks 
Nichols disembarked at Smolny Quay at four o'clock of the afternoon of 
September 4th, the same day the ships dropped anchor in the harbor. A 
patrol was at once put out under Lieut. Collins of "H" Company. It was well 
that American troops were landed at once as will prove evident from the 
following story. 

The new government of Archangel was headed by the venerable Tchai- 
kowsky, a man who had been a revolutionary leader of the highest and sane- 
est type for many years. He had lived for a period of years in America, on 
a farm in Kansas, and had been a writer of note in Russia and England 
for many years. He was a democratic leader and his government was 
readily accepted by the people. But as with all newly constructed govern- 
ments it moved very slowly and with characteristic Russian deliberation 
and interminable talk and red tape. 

This was too much for the impatient ones among the Russians who had 
invited the Allied expedition. One Colonel Tschaplin (later to be dubbed 
"Charley Chaplin" by American officers who took him humorously) who 
had served under the old Czar and had had, according to his yarns — told 
by the way in the most engaging English — a very remarkable experience 
with the Bolsheviks getting out of Petrograd. He was, it is said, influenced 
by some of the subordinate English officers to make a daring try to hasten 
matters. 

On the evening of the 5th of September, while the American soldiers were 
patrolling the Smolny area, near Archangel proper, this Col. Tschaplin 
executed his coup d'etat. He quietly surrounded the homes of Tschaikow- 
sky and other members of the Archangel State Grovernment and kidnapped 
them, hiding them away on an island in the Dvina River. 

Great excitement prevailed for several days. The people declared Tschap- 
lin was moving to restore monarchy under aid of the foreign arms and 
declared a strike on the street railroads and threatened to take the pumping 
station and the! electric power station located at Smolny. American troops 
manned the cars and by their good nature and patience won the respect and 

39 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

confidence of the populace, excited as it was. The American ambassador, 
the Hon. David R. Francis, with characteristic American directness and fair- 
ness called the impetuous Tschaplin before him and gave him so many hours 
in which to restore the rightful government to power. And Tchaikowsky 
came back into the State House on September 11th much to the rejoic- 
ing of the people and to the harmony of the Allied Expedition. The 
diplomatic and military authorities of the American part of the expedition 
had handled the situation in a way that prevented riot and gained esteem for 
Americans in the eyes of all the Russians. 

Archangel, Smolny and Bakaritza now were busy scenes of military activ- 
ity. Down the streets of Archangel marched part of a battalion of dough- 
boys past the State House and the imposing foreign Embassy Building. 
Curious eyes looked upon the O. D. uniform and admired the husky stalwarts 
from over the seas. Bright-eyed women crowded to the edge of the board- 
walks amongst the long-booted and heavily bewhiskered men. Well-dressed 
men with shaven faces and marks of culture studied the Americans specu- 
latively. Russian children began making acquaintance and offering their 
flattering Americanski Dobra. 

At Solombola, Smolny, Bakaritza, sounds of firing were heard daily, but 
the populace were quieted when told that it was not riot or Bolo attack but 
the Americans practising up with their ordnance. In fact the Americans, 
hearing of actions at the fronts, were desperately striving to learn how to 
use the Lewis guns and the Vickers machine guns. At Camp Custer they 
had perfected themselves in handling the Colt and the Brownings but in 
England had been obliged to relinquish them with the dubious prospect of 
re-equipping with the Russian automatic rifles and machine gun equipment 
at Archangel. Now they were feverishly at work on the new guns for 
reports were coming back from the front that the enemy was well equip- 
ped with such weapons and held the Americans at great disadvantage. 

Here let it be said that the American doughboy in the North Russian cam- 
paign mastered every kind of weapon that was placed in his hands or came 
by fortune of war to his hand. He learned to use the Lewis gun and the 
Vickers machine gun of the British and Russian armies, also the one-pounder, 
or pom pom. He became proficient in the use of the French Chauchat 
automatic rifle and the French machine gun, and their rifle grenade guns. 
He learned to use the Stokes mortars with deadly effect on many a hard- 
fought line. And during the winter two platoons of "Hq." Company prided 
themselves on the mastery of a battery of Russian artillery; patterned after 
the famous, in fact, the same famous French 75 gun. 

While the 2nd Battalion under Major Nichols was establishing itself in 
quarters at Smolny, where was a great compound of freshly unloaded supplies 
of food, herring and whiskey (do not forget the hard stuff) and becoming 
responsible for the safety of the pumping station and the electric power sta- 
tion and the ships in the harbor, Captain Taylor established the big Head- 
quarters Company at Olga barracks at the other end of the city on Septem- 
ber seventh where he could train his men for the handling of new weapons 
and could co-operate with Captain Kenyon's machine gun men. They on 

40 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

the same day took up quarters in Solombola Barracks and were charged 
with the duty of not only learning how to use the new machine guns but to 
keep guard over the quays and prevent rioting by the turbulent Russian 
sailors. Their undying enmity had been earned by the well-meant but 
untactful, yes, to the sailors apparently treacherous, conduct of General 
Poole toward them on the Russian ships in the Murmansk when he got them 
off on a pretext and then seized the ships to prevent their falling into the 
hands of the Red Guards. And while the doughboys on the railroad and 
Kodish fronts in the fall were occasionally to run up against the hard-fight- 
ing Russian sailors who had fled south to Petrograd and volunteered their 
services to Trotsky to go north and fight the Allied expeditionary forces, 
these doughboys doing guard duty in Archangel over the remnants of stores 
and supplies which the Bolo had not already stolen or sunk in the Dvina 
River, were constantly menaced by these surly, scowling sailors at Solom- 
bola and in Archangel. 

Really it is no wonder that the several Allied troop barracks were always 
guarded by machine guns and automatics. Rumor at the base always mag- 
nified the action at the front and always fancied riot and uprising in every 
group of gesticulating Russkis seen at a dusky corner of the city. 

The Supply Company of the regiment became the supply unit for all the 
American forces under Captain Wade and was quartered at Bakaritza, being 
protected by various units of Allied forces. "Finish" the package of Russki 
horse skin and bones which the boys "skookled" from the natives, that is, 
bought from the natives, became the most familiar sight on the quays, draw- 
ing the strange-looking but cleverly constructed drosky, or cart, bucking 
into his collar under the yoke and pulling with all his sturdy will, not minding 
the American "whoa" but obedient enough when the doughboy learned to 
sputter the Russki "br-r-r br-r-r.'' 

Archangel is situated on one of the arms of the Dvina River which deltas 
into the White Sea. Out of the enormous interior of North Russia, gather- 
ing up the melted snows of a million square miles of seven-foot snow and 
the steady June rains and the weeks of fall rains, the great Mississippi of 
North Russia moves down to the sea, sweeping with deep wide current great 
volumes of reddish sediment and secretions which give it the name Dvina. 
And the arm of the Arctic Ocean into which it carries its loads of silt and 
leachings, and upon which it floats the fishermen's bottoms or the merchant- 
men's steamers, is called the White Sea. Rightly named is that sea, the 
Michigan or Wisconsin soldier will tell you, for it is white more than half 
the year with ice and snow, the sporting" ground for polar bears. 

While we were fighting the Bolsheviki in Archangel, the National Geo- 
graphic Society, in a bulletin, published to our people certain facts about 
the country. It is so good that extracts are in this chapter included : 

"The city of Archangel, Russia, where Allied and American troops 
have their headquarters in the fight with the Bolshevik forces, was the 
capital of the Archangel Province, or government, under the czar's 
regime — a vast, barren and sparsely populated region, cut through by 
the Arctic Circle. 

41 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

"West and east, the distance across the Archangel district is about 
that from London to Rome, from New York to St. Louis, or from 
Boston to Charleston, S. C. Its area, exclusive of interior waters, is 
greater than that of France, Italy, Belgium and Holland combined. 
Yet there are not many more people in these great stretches than are 
to be found in Detroit, Mich., or San Francisco or Washington. 

"Arable land in all this territory is less than 1,200 square miles, and 
three-fourths of that is given over to pasturage. The richer grazing 
land supports Holmagor cattle, a breed said to date back to the time 
of Peter the Great, who crossed native herds with cattle imported from 
Holland. 

"About fifteen miles from the mouth of the Dvina River, which 
affords an outlet to the White Sea, lies the city of Archangel. Norsemen 
came to that port in the tenth century for trading. One expedition was 
described by Alfred the Great. But first contact with the outside world 
was esablished in the sixteenth century when Sir Richard Chancellor, 
an English sailor, stopped at the bleak haven while attempting a north- 
east passage to India. Ivan the Terrible summoned him to Moscow 
and made his visit the occasion for furthering commercial relations 
with England. Thirty years after the Englishman's visit a town was 
established and for the nexti hundred years it was the Muscovite king- 
dom's only seaport, chief doorway for trade with England and Holland. 

"When Peter the Great established St. Petersburg as his new capital 
much trade/ was diverted to the Baltic, but Archangel was compensated 
by designation as the capital of the Archangel government. 

"Boris Godunov threw open to all nations, and in the seventeenth 
century Tartar prisoners were set to work building a large bazaar and 
trading hall. Despite its isolation the city thus became a cosmopolitan 
center and up to the time of the world war Norwegian, German, British, 
Swedish and Danish cargo vessels came in large numbers. 

"Every June thousand of pilgrims would pass through Archangel on 
their way to the famous far north shrine, Solovetsky Monastery, sit- 
uated on an island a little more than half a day's boat journey from 
Archangel. 

"The city acquired its name from the Convent of Archangel Michael. 
In the Troitski Cathedral, with its five domes, is a wooden cross, four- 
teen feet high, carved by the versatile Peter the Great, who learned the 
use of mallet and chisel while working as a shipwright in Holland after 
he ascended the throne." 

To the sailor looking from the deck of his vessel or to the soldier ap- 
proaching from Bakaritza on tug or ferry, the city of Archangel affords an 
interesting view. Hulks of boats and masts and cordage and docks 
and warehouses in the front, with muddy streets. Behind, many 
buildings, grey-weathered ones and white-painted ones topped with many 
chimneys, and towering here and there a smoke stack or graceful spire or 
dome with minarets. Between are seen spreading tree tops, too. All these 

42 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIK! 

in strange confused order fill all the horizon there with the exception of one 
spaccy, through which in June can be seen the 11 :30 p. m. setting sun. And 
in this open space on clear evenings, which by the way, in June-July never 
get even dusky, at various hours can be seen a wondrous mirage of waters 
and shores that lie on the other side of the city below the direct line of sight. 

Prominently rises the impressive magnitudinous structure of the rev- 
erenced cathedral there, its dome of the hue of heaven's blue and set with 
stars of solid gold. And when all else in the landscape is bathed in morning 
purple or evening gloaming-grey, the levelled rays of the coming or depart- 
ing sun with a brilliantly striking effect glisten these white and gold struc- 
tures. Miles and miles away they catch the eye of the sailor or the soldier. 

Built on a low promontory jutting into the Dvina River, the city appears 
to be mostly water-front. In fact, it is only a few blocks wide, but it is 
crescent shaped with one horn in Smolny — a southern suburb having dock 
and warehouse areas — and the other in Solombola on the north, a city half 
as large as Archangel and possessing saw-mills, shipyards, hospitals, sem- 
inary and a hard reputation. Archangel is convex westward, so that one 
must go out for some distance to view the whole expanse of the city from 
that direction. A mass of trees, a few houses, some large buildings and 
churches mainly near the river, with a foreground of shipping, is the sum- 
mer view. The winter view is better, the bare trees and the smaller amount 
of shipping at the docks permitting a better view of the general layout of 
the city, the buildings and the type of houses used by the population as 
homes. 

Along the main street, Troitsky Prospect, runs a two-track trolley line 
connecting the north and south suburbs mentioned in the preceding para- 
graph. The cars are light and run very smoothly. They are operated 
chiefly by women. Between the main street and the river-front near the 
center of the city is the market-place. This covers several blocks and is 
full of dingy stalls and alleys occupied by almost hopeless traders and stocks 
in trade. As new wooden ware, home-made trinkets, second-hand clothing 
and fresh fish can be obtained there the year around, and in summer the 
offerings of vegetables are plentiful and tempting, the market-place never 
lacks shoppers who carry their paper money down in the same basket they 
use to carry back their purchases. 

Public buildings are of brick or stone and are colored white, pink, grey or 
bright red to give a light or warm effect, Down-town stores are built some 
of brick and some of logs. Homes are square in type, with few exceptions, 
built of logs, usually of very plain architecture, set directly against the 
sidewalks, the yards and gardens being at the side or rear. For privacy, 
each man's holdings are surrounded by a seven-foot fence. Thus the streets 
present long vistas of wooden ware, partly house and partly fence, with 
sometimes over-hanging trees, and with an inevitable set of doorsteps pro- 
jecting from each house over part of the sidewalk. This set of steps is 
seldom used, for the real entrance to the home is at the sidq of the house 
reached through a gateway in the fence. 

43 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

The houses in Archangel are usually of two stories, with double windows 
packed with cotton or flax to resist the cold. When painted at all, the houses 
have been afflicted by their owners with one or more coats of yellowish- 
brown stuff familiar to every American farmer who has ever "primed" a 
big barn. A few houses have been clap-boarded on the outside and some 
of these have been painted white. 

The rest of the street view is snow, or, lacking that, a cobbled pavement 
very rough and uneven, and Hned on each side — sometimes on one side only, 
or in the centre — with a narrow sidewalk of heavy planks laid lengthwise 
over the otherwise open public sewer, a ditch about three feet wide and from 
three to six feet deep. Woe be to him who goes through rotten plank! It 
has been done. 

So much for general scenic effects at Archangel. The Technical Insti- 
tute, used as Headquarters by the American Forces, is worth a glance. It 
is a four-story solid-looking building about one hundred and fifty feet square 
and eighty feet high, with a small court in the centre. The outside walls 
of brick and stone are nearly four feet thick, and their external surface is 
covered by pink-tinted plaster which catches the thin light of the low-lying 
winter sun and causes the building to seem to glow. On the front of the 
building there are huge pillars rising from the second story balcony to the 
great Grecian gable facing the river. 

Inside, this great building is simple and severe, but rather pleasing. Win- 
dows open into the court from a corridor running around the building on 
each floor, and on the other side of the corridor are the doors of the rooms 
once used as recitation and lecture halls, laboratories, manual training shops, 
offices, etc. Outside, it was one of the city's imposing buildings; inside, it 
was well-appointed. To the people of the city it was a building of great 
importance. It was worthy to offer the Commander of the American troops. 

Here Colonel Stewart set up his Headquarters. The British Commanding 
General had his headquarters, the G. H. Q., N. R. E. F., in another school 
building in the centre of the city, within close reach of the Archangel State 
Capitol Building. Colonel Stewart's headquarters were conveniently near 
the two buildings which afterward were occupied and fitted up for a receiv- 
ing hospital and for a convalescent hospital respectively, as related else- 
where, and not far either from the protection of the regimental Headquarters 
Company quartered in Olga Barracks. 

Here the Commanding Officer of this expeditionary force of Americans off 
up here near the North Pole on the strangest fighting mission ever under- 
taken by an American force, tried vainly to keep track of his widely dis- 
persed forces. Up the railroad he had seen his third battalion, under com- 
mand of Major C. G. Young, go with General Finlayson whom General Poole 
had ordered to take Vologda, four hundred miles to the south. His first bat- 
talion, under Lieutenant Colonel Corbley he had seen hurried off up the 
Dvina River under another British Brigadier-General to take Kotlas hun- 
dreds of miles up the river. His second battalion under Major J. Brooks 
Nichols was on duty in Archangel and the nearby suburbs. These forces, 
and his 310th Engineer Battalion and his Ambulance and Hospital Units 

44 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

were shifted about by the British Generals and Colonels and Majors often 
without any information whatever to Colonel Stewart, the American com- 
manding officer. He lost touch with his battalion and company commanders. 
He had a discouraging time even in getting his few general orders dis- 
tributed to the American troops. No wonder that often an American officer 
or soldier reporting in from a front by order or permission of a British 
field officer, did not feel that American Headquarters was his real head- 
quarters and in pure ignorance was guilty of omitting some duty or of fail- 
ure to comply with some Archangel restriction that had been ordered by 
American Headquarters. As to general orders from American Headquarters 
dealing with the action of troops in the field, those were so few and of so 
little impressiveness that they have been forgotten. We must say candidly 
that the doughboy came to look upon American Headquarters^ in Archangel 
as of very trifling importance in the strange game he was up against. He 
knew that the strategy wasi all planned at British G. H. Q., that the battle 
orders were written in the British field officer's headquarters, that the trans- 
portation and supplies of food were under control of the British; that alto- 
gether too much of the hospital service was under control of the British. 
Somehow the doughboy felt that the very limited and much complained about 
service of his own American Supply Unit, that lived for the most part on 
the fat of the land in Bakaritza, should have been corrected by his com- 
manding officer who sat in American Headquarters. And they felt, whether 
correctly or not, that the court-martial sentences of Major C. G. Young, 
who acted as summary court officer at Smolny after he was relieved of his 
command in the field, were unnecessarily harsh. And they blamed their 
commanding officer, Colonel Stewart, for not taking note of that fact when 
he reviewed and approved them. The writers of this history of the expedi- 
tion think the doughboy had much to justify his feeling. 



4;-) 



Why American Troops Were Sent to Russia 

This Was A Much Mooted Question Among Soldiers — Partisan Poli- 
ticians Attacked With Vitriol — Partisan Explanations Did Not 
Explain — Red Propaganda Helped Confuse The Case — Russians Of 
Archangel, Too, Were Concerned — We Whoi Were There Think Of 
Those Pitiable Folk And Their Hopeless Military And Political 
Situation That Tried Our Patience And That Of The Directors Of 
The Expedition Who Undoubtedly Knew No Better Than We Did. 

To many people in America and England and France the North Russian 
Expedition appears to have been an unwarrantable invasion of the land of 
an ally, an ally whose land was torn by iriternal upheavals. It has been 
charged that commercial cupidity conceived the campaign. Men declare 
that certain members of the cabinet of Lloyd George and of President 
Wilson were desirous of protecting their industrial holdings in North 
Russia. 

The editors of this work can not prove or disprove these allegations nor 
prove or disproves the replies made to the allegations. We have not the 
time or means to do so even if our interests, political or otherwise, should 
prompt us to try it. From discussion of the partisan attacks on and defense 
of the administration's course of action toward Russia in 1918-19, both of 
which are erratic and acrimonious, we plead to be excused. 

We shall tell the story of the genesis of the expedition as well as we can. 
We do not profess to know all about it. It v^ill be some time before the 
calm historian can possess himself of all the facts. Till such time we 
hope that this brief statement will stand. We offer it hesitatingly with 
keen consciousness of the danger that it will probably suit neither of the 
two parties in controversy over the sending of troops to North Russia. 

But we offer this straightforward story coflfidently to our late comrades. 
They have entrusted us with the duty of writing the history of what they 
did in North Russia as their bit in the Great World War. And we know 
our comrades, at least, and we hope the general reader, too, will credit us 
with writing in sincerity and good faith. 

Early in 1918, for the Allied forces, it looked dark. The Germans were 
able to neglect the crumbled-in Eastern Front and concentrate a tornado 
drive on the Western Front. It was at last realized that the controlling 
Bolshevik faction in Russia was bent on preventing the resumption of the 
war on the Eastern Front and possibly might play its feeble remnants of 
military forces on the side of the Germans. The Allied Supreme Council 
at Versailles decided that the other allies must go to the aid of their old 
ally Russia who had done such great service in the earlier years of the 
war. On the Russian war front Germany must be made again to feel 
pressure of arms. Organization of that front would have to be made by 
efforts of the Allied Supreme War Council. 

47 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

They had some forces to build on. Several thousand Czecho-Slovak troops 
formerly on the Eastern Front had been held together after the dissolution 
of the last Russian offensive in 1917. Their commander had led them 
into Siberia. Some at that time even went as far as Vladivostok. These 
troops had desired to go back to their own country or to France and 
take part in the final campaign against the Germans. There was no trans- 
portation by way of the United States. Negotiations with the Bolshevist 
rulers of Russia, the story runs, brought promises of safe passage westward 
across central Russia and then northward to Archangel, thence by ship to 
France. 

This situation in mind the Allied Supreme War Council urged a plan 
whereby an Allied expedition of respectable size would be sent to Archangel 
with many extra officers for staff and instruction work, to meet the Czechs 
and reorganize and re-equip them, rally about them a large Northern 
Russian Army, and proceed rapidly southward to reorganize the Eastern 
Front and thus draw off German troops from the hard pressed Western 
Front. This plan was presented to the Allied Supreme War Council by a 
British officer and politician fresh from Moscow and Petrograd and 
Archangel, enthusiastic in his belief in the project. 

The expedition was to be large enough to proceed southward without the 
Czechs, sending them back to the West by the returning ships if their 
morale should provQ to be too low for the stern task to be essayed on 
ihe restored Eastern Front. General Poole, the aforementioned British 
officer in command, seems to have been very sure that the Bolsheviks who 
had so blandly agreed to the passage of the Czechs through the country 
would not object to the passage of the expedition southward from Arch- 
angel, via Vologda, Petrograd and Riga to fight the Germans with whom 
they, the Bolsheviki, had compacted the infamous Brest-Litovsk treaty. 

All this while, remember, the old allies of Russia had preserved a studied 
neutrality toward the factional fight in Russia. They steadily refused to 
recognize the Bolshevik government of Lenine and Trotsky. 

While this plan was still in the whispering stages, the activities of the 
Germans in Finland where they menaced Petrograd and where their exten- 
sion of three divisions to the northward and eastward seemed to forecast 
the establishment of submarine bases on the Murmansk and perhaps even 
at Archangel where lay enormous stores of munitions destined earlier in the 
war to be used by the Russians and Rumanians against the Huns. At any 
rate, the port of Archangel would be one other inlet for food supplies to 
reach the tightly blockaded Germans, v 

Since the autumn of 1914 military supplies of all kinds, chiefly made in 
America and England, had been sent to Archangel for the use of the' 
Russian armies. At the time of the revolution against the old Czar Nicholas, 
in 1917, there were immense stores in the warehouses of the Archangel 
district and the Archangel- Vologda Railway had been widened to standard 
gauge and many big American freight cars supplied to carry those suppHes 
southward. And these stores had been greatly augmented during the 
Kerensky regime, the enthusiastic time immediately subsequent to the fall 

48 




Olga Barracks 



U.S. OFFICIAL PHOTO 




Street Car Strike in Archangel 



U, S. OFFICIAL PHOTO 



m 







i ii>M""j »i-'i .1 1 V - 



"ff^ j j _ 



Am?rican Hospitals and Headquarten 



S. OFFICIAL PHOTO 




"Supply" Co. Canteen "Accommodates" Boi/s 



S OFFICIAL ?'%^ 




Red Cross Ambulances, Archangel 



U S. OFFICI'L PHOTO 




Sinylr FUil Strip of lr<))i on Plow Point 




Thankful for What at Home We Feed Pigs 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

of the Czar, when anti-German Russians were exulting "Now the arch 
traitor is gone, we can really equip our armies," and when the Allies 
believed that after a few months of confusion the revolutionary government 
would become a more trustworthy ally than the old imperial government 
had been. 

Now, although Archangel was the chief port of entry for military 
supplies to the new Russian government, the geographical situation of the 
northern province, or rather state, of Archangel had left it rather high 
and dry in the hands of a local government, which, so distantly affiliated 
with Moscow and Petrograd, did not reflect fully either the strength or 
weaknesses of the several regimes which succeeded one another at the capital 
between the removal of the Czar and the machine gun assumption of control 
by the bloody pair of zealots and tricksters, Lenine and Trotzky. Conse- 
quently, when Kerensky disappeared the government at Archangel did not 
greatly change in character. 

To be sure, it had no army or military force of its own. The central 
government sent north certain armed Red Guards, and agents of government 
called ^"commissars," who were to organize and controf additions to the 
Red Guards and to supervise also the civil government of Archangel state, 
as much as possible. These people of the northern state were indeed jealous 
of their rights of local government. And the work of the Red agents in 
levying on the property and the man-power of the North was passively 
resisted by these intelligent North Russians. 

All this was of great interest to the Allied Supreme War Council because 
of the danger that the war supplies would be seized by the rapidly embold- 
ened Bolshevik government and be delivered into the hands of the Germans 
for use against the Allies. For since the Brest-Litovsk treaty it had appeared 
from many things that the crafty hand of Germany was inside the Russian 
Bolshevik glove. 

Moreover, there were in North Russia, as in every other part, many 
Russians who could not resign themselves to Bolshevik control, even of the 
milder sort, nor to any German influence. Those in the Archangel district 
banded themselves together secretly and sent repeated calls to the Allies 
for help in ridding their territory of the Bolshevik Red Guards and German 
agents, using as chief arguments the factors above mentioned. While the 
anti-Bolshevists were unwilling to unmask in their own state, for obvious 
reason, their call for help was made clear to the outside world and furnished 
the Allied Supreme War Council just the pretext for the expedition which 
it was planning for a purely military purpose, namely, to reconstruct the 
old Eastern fighting front. 

In fact, when a survey of the military resources of the European Allies 
had disclosed their utter lack of men for such an expedition and it was 
found that the only hope lay in drawing the bulk of the needed troops from 
the United States forces, and when the statement of the cases in the usual 
polite arguments brought from President Wilson a positive refusal to allow 
American troops to go into Russia, it was only by the emphasis, it is said, 
of the pathetic appeal of the North Russian anti-Bolshevists, coupled with 

49 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

the stirring appeals of such famous characters as the one-time leader of the 
Russian Women's Battalion of Death and the direct request of General 
Foch himself for the use of the American troops there in Russia as a 
military necessity to win the war, that the will of President Wilson was 
moved and he dubiously consented to the use of American troops in the 
expedition. ' j 

Even this concession of President Wilson was limited to the one regiment 
of infantry with the needed accompaniments of engineer and medical troops. 
The bitter irony of this limitation is apparent in the fact that while it 
allowed the Supreme War Council to carry out its scheme of an AlUed 
Expedition with the publicly announced purposes before outlined, com- 
mitting America and the other Allies to the guarding of supplies at Mur- 
mansk and Archangel and frustrating the plans of Germany in North 
Russia, it did not permit the Allied War Council sufficient forces to carry 
out its ultimate and of course secret purpose of reorganizing the Eastern 
Front, which naturally was not to be advertised in advance either to Russians 
or to anyone. The vital aim was thus thwarted and the expedition destined 
to weakness and to future political and diplomatic troubles both in North 
Russia and in Europe and America. 

During the months spent in winning the participation of the United 
States in an Allied Expedition to North Russia, England took some pre- 
liminary steps which safeguarded the Murmansk Railway as far south 
toward Petrograd as Kandalaksha. 

Royal Engineers and Marines, together with a few officers and men from 
French and American Military Missions, who had worked north with the 
diplomatic corps, were thus for a dangerously long period the sole bulwark 
of the Allies against complete pro-German domination of the north of 
Russia. Some interesting stories could be told of the clever secret work 
of the American officers in ferreting out the evidences in black and white, 
of the co-operation of the German War Office with Lenine and Trotsky. 
And stories of daring and pluck that saved men's lives and kept the North 
Russians from a despairing surrender to the Bolsheviki. 

Meanwhile England was taking measures herself to support these men 
so as to form a nucleus for the larger expedition when it should be inaugur- 
ated by the Allied Supreme War Council. But the total number of British 
officers and men who could be spared for the purpose, in view of the critical 
situation on the Western Front, was less than 1,200. And these had to be 
divided between the widely separated areas of Murmansk and Archangel. 
And the officers and men sent were nearly all, to a man, those who had 
already suffered wounds or physical exhaustion on the Western Front. This 
was late in June. About this time the plan of the Allied Supreme War 
Council as already stated was, under strict limitations, acceded to by 
President Wilson, and the doughboys of the 339th Infantry in July found 
themselves in England hearing about Archangel and disgustedly exchanging 
their Enfields for the Russian rifles. 

For various reasons the command of the expedition v»^as assigned by 
General Foch to General Poole, the British officer who had been so enthusi- 

50 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

astic about rolling up a big volunteer army of North Russians to go south 
to Petrograd and wipe out the Red dictatorate and re-establish the old 
hard-fighting Russian Front on the East. Naturally, American soldiers who 
fought that desperate campaign in North Russia now feel free to criticize 
the judgment of General Foch in putting General Poole in command. It 
appears from the experiences of the soldiers up there that for military, for 
diplomatic and for political reasons it would have been better to put an 
American general in command of the expedition. And while we are at it we 
might as well have our little say about President Wilson. We think he erred 
badly in judgment. He either should have sent a large force of Americans 
into North Russia — as we did into Cuba — a force capable of doing up the 
job quickly and thoroughly, or sent none at all. He should have known 
that the American doughboy fights well for a cause, but that a British 
general would have a hard time convincing the Americans of the justice 
of a mixed cause. This is confession of a somewhat blind prejudice which 
the American citizen has against the aggressive action of British' arms 
wherever on the globe they may be seen in action, no matter how justifiable 
the ultimate turn of events may prove the British military action to have 
been. We say that this prejudice should have been taken into account when 
the American doughboy was sent to Russia to fight under British command. 
It might not be out of order to point out that the North Russian shared 
with his American allies in that campaign the same prejudice, unreasonable 
at times without doubt, but none the less painful prejudice against the 
British command of the expedition. And all this in spite of the fact that 
most of the British officers were personally above reproach, and General 
Ironside, who soon succeeded the failing Poole, was every inch of his six 
foot-four a man and a soldier, par excellence. 

The French were able to send only part of a regiment, one battalion of 
Colonial troops and a machine gun company, who reached the Murmansk 
late in July about the time the Americans were sailing from England. They 
were soon sent on to Archangel, where political things were now come to 
a head. 

The Serbian battalion which had left Odessa at the time of the summer 
collapse of the Russian armies in 1917 had gradually worked its way north- 
ward from Petrograd on the Petrograd-Kola Railroad with the intention of 
shipping for the Western fighting front by way of England. They had 
been of potential aid to the Allied military missions during the summer and 
now were permitted by the Serbian government to be joined to the Allied 
expedition. They were accordingly put into position along the Kola Railroad. 
These troops, of course, as well as thousands of British troops which were 
stationed in the Murmansk and by the British War Office were numbered in 
the North Russian Expeditionary forces, were of no account whatever in 
the military activities of that long fall and winter and spring campaign in 
the far away Archangel area where the American doughboys for months, 
supported here and there by a few British and French and Russians, stood 
at bay before the swarming Bolos and battled for their lives in snow and ice. 

SI 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

The battalion of Italian troops with its company of skii troops which 
sailed from England with the American convoy also went to the Murmansk 
and all the American doughboy saw of Italians in the fighting area of 
Archangel, North Russia, was the little handful of well dressed Italian 
officers and batmen in the city of Archangel. Of course, we had plenty of 
representation of Italian fighting blood right in our own ranks. They were 
in the O. D. uniform and were American citizens. And of course the same 
thing could be said of many another nationality that was represented in the 
ranks of American doughboys and whose bravery in battle and fortitude 
in hardships of cold and hunger gave evidence that no one nationality has 
a corner on courage and "guts" and manhood. To call the roll of one of 
those heroic fighting companies of doughboys or engineers or medical or 
hospital companies in the olive drab would evidence by the names of the 
men and officers that the best bloods of Europe and of Asia were all pulsing 
in the American ranks. 

The presence of British, French and American war vessels and the first 
small bodies of troops encouraged the Murmansk Russian authorities to 
declare their independence of the Red Moscow crowd and to throw in their 
lot with the Allies in the work of combatting the agents of the German 
War Office in the North. In return the Allies were to furnish money, food 
and supplies. Early in July written agreement to this effect had been signed 
by the Murmansk Russian authorities and all the Allies represented, includ- 
ing the United States. It will be recalled that Ambassador Francis had been 
obliged to leave Petrograd by the Bolshevik rulers, and he had gone north 
into Murmansk. 

The result of this agreement with the Murmansk and the arrival of 
further troops at the Murmansk coast, together with the promise of more 
to follow immediately, was to influence the Russian local government of 
the state of Archangel to break with the hated Reds. And so, on August 1st, 
a quiet coup d'etat was effected. The anti-Bolshevists came out into the 
open. The Provisional North Russian Government was organized. The 
people were promised an election and they accepted the situation agreeably 
for they had detested the Red government. Two cargoes of food had no 
little also to do with the heartiness of their acceptance of the Allied military 
forces and the overturn of the Bolshevik government. 

Within forty-eight hours came the military forces already mentioned, 
the advance forces of the British that preceded the Allied expedition, con- 
sisting of a huge British staff, a few British soldiers, a few French and a 
detachment of fifty American sailors from the "Olympia." In a few days 
the battalion of French colonials sailed in from Murmansk. 

The coming of the troops prevented the counter coup of the Reds. They 
could only make feeble resistance. The passage up the delta of the Dvina 
River and the actual landing while exciting to the jackies met with little 
opposition. Truth to tell, the wily Bolsheviks had for many weeks seen 
the trend of affairs, and, expecting a very much larger expedition, had sent 
or prepared for hasty sending south by rail toward Vologda or by river to 
Kotlas of all the military supplies and munitions and movable equipment 

52 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

as well as large stores of loot and plunder from the city of Archangel and 
suburbs. Count von Mirbach, the German ambassador at Moscow, threatened 
Lenine and Trotsky that the German army then glowering in Finland, across 
the way, would march on Petrograd unless the military stores were brought 
out of Archangel. 

The rearguard of the Bolshevik armed forces was disappearing over 
the horizon when the American jackies seized engines and cars at Arch- 
angel Preestin and Bakaritza, which had been saved by the hindering 
activities of anti-Bolshevik trainmen, and dashed south in pursuit. There 
is a heroic little tale of an American Naval Reserve lieutenant who with a 
few sailors took a lame locomotive and two cars with a few rifles and two 
machine guns, mounted on a flat car, and hotly gave chase to the retreating 
Red Guards, routing them in their stand at Issaka Gorka where they were 
trying to destroy or run off locomotives and cars, and then keeping their 
rear train moving southward at such a rate that the Reds never had time to 
blow the rails or burn a bridge till he had chased them seventy-five miles. 
There a hot box on his improvised armored train stopped his pursuit. He 
tore loose his machine guns and on foot reached the bridge in time to see the 
Reds burn it and exchange fire with them, receiving at the end a wound 
in the leg for his great gallantry. 

The Red Guards were able to throw up defenses and to bring up sup- 
porting troops. A few days later the French battalion fought a spirited, but 
indecisive, engagement with the Reds. It was seen that he intended to fight 
the Allies. He retreated southward a few miles at a time, and during the 
latter part of August succeeded in severely punishing a force of British 
and French and American sailors, who had sought to attack the Reds in 
flank. And it was this episode in the early fighting that caused the frantic 
radiogram to reach us on the Arctic Ocean urging the American ships to 
speed on to Archangel to save the handful of Allied men threatened with 
annihilation on the railroad and up the Dvina River. And we were to go 
into it wholehearted to save them, and later find ourselves split up into many 
detachments and cornered up in many another just such perilous position 
but with no forces coming to support us. 

The inability of the Allied Supreme War Council to furnish sufficient 
troops for the North Russian expedition, and the delay of the United States 
to furnish the part of troops asked of her, very nearly condemned the under- 
taking to failure before it was fairly under way. However, as the ultimate 
success of the expedition depended in any event on the success of the 
Allied operations in far off Siberia in getting the Czecho-Slovak veterans 
and Siberian Russian allies through to Kotlas, toward which they were 
apparently fighting their way under their gallant leader and with the aid of 
Admiral Kolchak, and because there was a strong hope that General Poole's 
prediction of a hearty rallying of North Russians to the standards of the 
Allies to fight the Germans and Bolsheviki at one and the same time, the 
decision of the Supreme War Council was, in spite of President Wilson's 
opposition to the plan, to continue the expedition and strengthen it as fast 
as possible. To the American soldier at this distance it looks as though 

53 



THE ARIERICAN EXPEDITION 

the French and British, perhaps in all good faith, planned to muddle along 
till the American authorities could be shown the fitness or the necessity 
of supporting the expedition with proper forces. But this was playing 
with a handful of Americans and other Allied troops a great game of hazard. 
Only those who went through it can appreciate the peril and the hazard. 

To the credit of the American doughboys and Tommies and Poilus and 
others who went into North Russia in the fall of 1918 let it be said that 
they smashed in with vim and gallant action, thinking that they were going 
to do a small bit away up there in the north to frustrate the military and 
political plans of the Germans. And although they were not all interested 
in the Russian civil war at the beginning, they did learn that the North 
Russian people's ideal of government was the representative government 
of the Americans, while the Red Guards whom they were fighting stood for 
a government which on paper at its own face value represented only one 
class and offered hatred to all other classes. When it tried to put into 
effect its so-called constitution that had been dreamed out of a nightmare 
of oppression and hate, it failed completely. Machine gun beginning begot 
cruel offspring of provisional courts of justice and sword-revised Soviets 
of the people so that packed Soviets and Lenine-picked delegates and Trotsky- 
ridden ministers made the actual soviet government as much resemble the 
ideal soviet government as a wild-cat mining stock board of directors 
resembles a municipal board of public works. And the world knows now, 
if it did not in 1918-19, that the Russian Socialist Federated Soviet Republic 
was, and is, a highly centralized tyranny, frankly called by its own leaders 
"The Dictatorship of the Proletariat." The Russian people prayed for "a 
fish and received a serpent." 



S4 



VI 

On The Famous Kodish Front In The Fall 

"K" Company Hurries To Save Force "B" — Importance Of Kodish Front — 
Hazelden's Force Destroyed — First Fight At Seletskoe — Both Sides 
Burn Bridges — Desperate Fighting At Emtsa River — Capture Of Kod- 
ish — Digging In — We Lose Village After Days Of Hard Fighting — 
Trenches And Blockhouses. 

Nowhere did the Yanks in North Russia find the fighting fiercer than did 
those who were battling their way toward Plesetskaya on the famous Kodish 
front. Woven into their story is that of the most picturesque American 
fighter and doughtiest soldier of the many dauntless officers and men who 
struggled and bled in that strange campaign. This man was Captain Michael 
Donoghue, commanding officer of "K" Company, 339th Infantry. He after- 
ward was promoted in the field to rank of major and his old outfit of 
Detroit boys proudly remember that "K" stands for Kodish where they 
and their commander earned the plaudits of the regiment. 

It will be remembered that the third battalion was hurried from troop- 
ship to trooptrain and steamed south as fast as the rickety Russki locomotives 
of the 1880 type could wobble, and it will be remembered that Captain 
Donoghue, the senior captain of that battalion, was chosen to go with half 
of his "K" Company to the relief of a mixed force of American sailors and 
British Royal Scots and French infantry who had been surrounded, it was 
rumored, and were in imminent danger of annihilation. 

With his little force of one hundred and twenty men, including a medical 
officer with eight enlisted medical men, transporting his rations and extra 
munitions on the dumpy little Russki droskie, the American officer led out of 
Obozerskaya at three o'clock in the afternoon, bivouacked for the night some- 
where on the trail in a cold drizzle, and reached Volshenitsa, the juncture of 
the trails from Seletskoe and Emtsa, about noon of the 8th of September. 

Four versts beyond Volshenitsa the column passed the scene of the battle 
between the Bolos and "B" Force. Gear and carts scattered around and two 
or three fresh graves told that this was serious business. A diary of an 
American sailor and the memoranda of a British officer, broken off suddenly 
on the 30th of August, that were picked up told of the adventures of the 
handful of men we were going to hunt. More explanations of the genesis 
of this Kodish front is now in order. 

Consideration of thci map will show that Kodish was of great strategic 
importance. Truth to tell it was of more importance than our High Com- 
mand at first estimated. The Bolshevik strategists were always aware of 
its value and never permitted themselves to be neglectful of it. Trotsky knew 
that the strategy and tactics of the winter campaign would make good use 
of the Kodish road. Indeed it was seen in the fall by General Poole that 
a Red column from Plesetskaya up the Kodish road was a wedge between 

55 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

the railroad forces and the river forces, always imperiling the Vaga and 
Dvina forces with being cut ofif if the Reds came strong enough. 

The first movement on Kodish by the Allied troops had been made by 
"B" force under the command of Col. Hazelden of the British army. With 
about two hundred men composed of French soldiers, a few English soldiers, 
American sailors from the Olympic, and some local Russian volunteers, he 
had pushed up the Dvina and Vaga to Seletskoe and operating from there 
had sent a party of French even as far as Emtsa River, a few miles north 
of Kodish. 

But before he could attack Kodish, Hazelden was ordered to strike across 
the forest area and attack the Reds in the rear near Obozerskaya where the 
Bolshevik rear guard with its excellent artillery strategist was stubbornly 
holding the Allied Force "A."' Passing through Seletskoe he left the Rus- 
sian volunteers to oppose the Reds in Kodish, and guard his rear. But these 
uncertain troops fled upon approach of the Bolos and about the first of Sep- 
tember Col. Hazelden instead of being in a position to demoralize the Reds 
on the railroad by a swift blow from behind, found himself in desperate 
defense, both front and rear, and beleagured in the woods and swamps some 
twenty-seven versts east of Obozerskaya. 

He managed to get a message through to Sisskoe just before the Reds 
closed in on him from behind. About a hundred English marines, a section 
of machine gunners, a platoon of Royal Scots, and some Russian artillery, 
all enroute to Archangel from their chase of the Reds up the Dvina, were 
ordered ofif their barges at Sisskoe, were christened "D^ Force, and, under 
the command of Captain Scott, British, officer, were given the task of pre- 
venting the Reds from Kodish from cutting off the river communications. 

This force was also to help Col. Hazelden out. But as we have seen, his 
force had been destroyed, and Americans hurriedly sent out. At Volshenitsa 
Captain Donoghue received a message by aeroplane from Col. Guard at 
Obozerskaya that "D" Force was held up at Tiogra by the Reds. After 
patrolling the forestTTve days and finding the trail to Emtsa impassable 
during the wet season, "K" Company received both the welcome reinforce- 
ments of Lieut. Gardner and the twenty men who had been left at Lewis gun 
School at Bakaritza, and orders to proceed on to Seletskoe. 

The Red Guards hearing of the American successes on the railway and 
hearing of the approach of this force from the railroad in their rear went 
back to Kodish, and on the morning of September 16th "K" Company 
became a full-fledged member of "D" Force to be better known the world 
over in the bitterest part of this campaign as the Kodish Force. 

Here the doughboys got their baptism of fire when they took over under 
fire the outposts of the village of Seletskoe. For the Bolos who had retreated 
the week before had told the inhabitants they would be back and they were 
making their threat, or promise, as you will have it, good. For two days 
and nights the Americans beat off the attacks, principally through the good 
work of Sgt. Michael Kinney, the gallant soldier who fell at Kodish on New 
Year's Day. Aided by the accurate fire of the French machine gun section, 
the "K" men inflicted such heavy penalties that the Reds quit in panic, assassi- 

56 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

nated their commander and skurried south thirty miles. However, this vic- 
tory was not exploited by the Allied force. Itseems that the commander of 
the force had sent out a Russian patrol on the east bank of the Emtsa River 
which brought back information that a heavy force of the enemy was oper- 
ating in the rear of "D" force. 

Accordingly Captain Scott ordered a retreat from Seletskoe to Tiogra, 
taking up a position on the north bank of the Emtsa River after burning 
the bridge to prevent pursuit by the Reds who it was afterwards found were 
fleeing in the opposite direction, after having burned another bridge on the 
Emtsa further to thq south to prevent the Americans from pursuing them. 

An interesting story was often repeated about this funny episode which 
was due to the credence given by the British officer to the report of the highly 
imaginative Russian patrol. 

An English corporal on one of the outposts of Seletskoe was not informed 
by Captain Scott of the retreat during the night. Next morning he went 
forward and discovered that the Reds had burned their bridge. But when 
he went to report that fact he found the village of Seletskoe evacuated by 
his own forces, natives' also having fled with everything of value from the 
samovar to the cow. A few hours later the old corporal appeared on the 
other bridgeless bank of the Emtsa across from the "K" men who were dig- 
ging in and said in a puzzled way, "I saiy, old chap, wots the bloody gaime?'' 

Of course as soon as an improvised pontoon could be rigged up "K" Com- 
pany and the rest of the happily informed force were in pursuit again of the 
Reds. The bridge was constructed by a detachment of the 310th. American 
Engineers, who had come up with Col. Henderson, of the famous "Black 
Watch," the new commander. 

The French machine gunners by this time were badly needed on the rail- 
road force. In their place came a company of the Russian Officers' Train- 
ing Corps. 

On September 23rd Seletskoe was again occupied and the Yanks began 
improving its defenses, taking much satisfaction in the arrival from Arch- 
angel of Lieut. Ballard's American machine gun' platoon. Within two days 
also their ranks were greatly strengthened by the arrival of Lieut. Chappel 
from Issaka Gorka with the other two platoons of "K" company closely 
followed by Captain Cherry with "L" Company from the Railroad force. 

General Finlayson, whose job it was to take Plesetskaya, now sought to 
shove the Kodish force ahead rapidly so as to trap the Reds on the rail- 
road between the two forces. Accordingly the next morning, September 
26th, "K" Company and two platoons of "L" and the machine gun section 
moved south toward Kodish to achieve the mission that had been assigned 
to Col. Hazelden. The Bolshevik was found the next morning strongly en- 
trenched on the other side of the river Emtsa near the burned bridge and 
after severe losses suffered in the gaining of a foothold on the north side 
of the river by crossing on a raft, the Americans had to dig in. In fact 
they lay for over a week in the swamp hanging tenaciously to their position 
but unable to advance. Men's feet swelled in their wet boots till the shoes 
burst. But still they hung on under the example of their game old captain. 

57 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

At this time Lieut. Chappel was victim of a Bolo machine gun while trying 
to lead a raiding squad up to its capture. Six others were killed and twenty- 
four were wounded. Droskics needed for transportation of supplies and 
ammunition had to be used to take back the wounded and sick from exposure 
to Seletskoe. No "K" or "L" or "M. G." man who was there will ever 
forget those days. 

It was obvious that the Kodish force must be augmented. English marines 
and a section of Canadian artillery came up. Headquarters was established 
in the four-house village of Mejnovsky, eight miles back. Steady sniping and 
patrol action was carried on actively by both forces. Col. Henderson's fur- 
ther attempt to throw a force across the river by means of a raft was 
frustrated by the Reds. October 7th Lieut.-Col. Gavin came up to assume 
command. 

This energetic and keen British officer soon worked out plans for effect- 
ing an advance. Using the American engineers, he soon had a ferry in use 
three versts — about two miles — below Mejnovsky. 

And on October the 12th "K" and "L" Companies crossed on that 
ferry and marched up the left bank of the Emtsa till within one thousand 
yards of the flank of the strong Bolo position, and bivouacked in the swamp 
for the night. In the morning Captain Cherry took his company and two 
platoons of "K" and struck south to pass by the flank and fall upon Kodish 
in rear of the enemy who was holding the position in great force at the river. 
The remainder of "K" Company moved upon the right of the enemy front 
line at the river crossing. At the time Donoghue struck, a frontal demon- 
stration was made upon the Reds by the English marines and American ma- 
chine guns firing across the river and by the Canadian artillery shelling the 
woods where the Red reserves were thought to be. The plan failed because 
of the inability of Captain Cherry to reach his objective, on account^ of the 
bottomless swamps that he encountered. Captain Donoghue gained a foot- 
hold and then was forced to' dig in and during the afternoon repulsed two 
counter attacks of the Bolos, having paid for the capture of the two Bolo 
machine guns by severe losses. 

During the night under cover of these two platoons, "L" and the English 
marines crossed the river, where the Reds had held them so many days. And 
during the following day the right of the Bolo position was turned by a 
movement through the woods. 

But at four o'clock in the afternoon the enemy's second, position, a mile 
north of the village, developed surprising strength. In fact, the Reds counter- 
attacked just at dark and once more the doughboys lay down, on their arms, 
in the rain-flooded swamp, where the dark, frosty morning would find them 
stiff and ugly customers for the Reds to tackle. In fact they did rise up and 
smite the Bolshevik so swiftly that he fled from his works and left Kodish 
in such a hurry that he gave no forwarding address for his mail. Captain 
Donoghue set up his headquarters in Kodish and sent detachments out to 
follow the Reds and to threaten the Red Shred Makhrenga and Taresevo 
forces. During this fight, or rather after it, the Canadians taught our boys 
their first lesson in" looting the persons of the dead. Our men had been 

58 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

rather respectful and gentle with the Bolo dead who were quite numerous 
on the Emtsa River battlefield. Can you call a tangle of woods a field? 
But the Canadians, veterans of four years fighting, immediately went through 
the; pockets of the dead for roubles and knives and so forth and even took 
the boots off the dead, as they were pretty fair boots. 

The officer who reports this says he has often heard of dead men's boots 
but had to go to war to actually see them worn. 

In passing let it be stated that many a footsore doughboy helped himself 
to a dry pair of boots from a dead Red Guard or in winter to a pair of 
valenkas, or warm felt boots. One of "Captain Mike's" nervy sergeants 
protested against being sent back to Seletskoe to get him a new pair of 
shoes, for he hated the ill-fitting British army shoe, as all Americans did, 
and prevailed upon Donoghue to let him wait a few days till after a battle 
when he sure enough helped himself to a fine pair of boots. 

One thing the American never did take from the dead Bolo was his Rus- 
sian tobacco, for it was worse even than the British issue tobacco. A good 
story is told on one of Donoghue's lieutenants. During the excitement of 
burning the bridge over the Emtsa at Tiogra, time when the two forces fled 
from one another, the officer, greatly fatigued, sat down on the bridge during 
the preparations by the men. He was missed later on the march and the 
man whom the captain sent back to find the lieutenant arrived just in time 
to keep what little hair the popular bald-headed little officer had from being 
singed off by the leaping flames. Lieut. Ryan does not like to be kidded about 
it. 

The morning of the seventeenth of October saw the American forces 
again on the advance. Good news had come of the successes on the railroad. 

The Kodish force was in the strategic position now to force the Reds to 
give up Emtsa and Plesetskaya. But Trotsky's northern army commander 
evidently well understood that situation, for he gave strict attention to this 
Kodish force of Americans and at the fifteenth verst pole on the main road 
his Red Guards held the Americans all day. Again the next day he made 
Donoghue's Yanks strive all day. Just at night successful flanking move- 
ments caused the enemy to evacuate his formidable position. It was here 
that Sgt. Cromberger, one of Ballard's machine gun men, distinguished him- 
self by going single-handed into the Bolo lines to reconnoiter. 

The converging advances upon Plesetskaya by the three columns, up the 
Onega Valley, on the railroad and on the Kodish-Plesetskaya-Petrograd 
highway now seemed about to succeed. Hard fighting by all three columns 
had broken the Bolshevik's confidence somewhat. 

Of course at this time of writing it can be seen better than it could then. 
He did not make a stand at Avda. He was found by our patrols way back 
at Kochmas, only a few miles from the railroad. Meanwhile the Russian 
Officers' Training Corps which was armed with forty Lewis guns and acted 
rather independently, together with the Royal Scot platoon and a large num- 
ber of "partisans," anti-Bolshevik volunteers of the area, effected the capture 
of Shred Makhrenga, Taresevo and other villages, which added to the threat 
of the Kodish force on Plesetskaya. \ 

59 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

Plesetskaya at that moment was indeed of immense value to the Reds. It 
was the railroad base of their four columns that were holding up the left 
front of their Northern Army. But they were discouraged. Our patrols and 
spies sent into Plesetskaya vicinity reported and stories of deserters and 
wounded men all indicated that the Reds were getting ready to evacuate 
Plesetskaya. A determined smash of the three Allied columns would have 
won the coveted position. But the Kodish force now received the same 
strange order from far-off Archangel that was received on the other fronts : 
"To hold on and dig in." No further advances were to be made. Thinking 
of their eleven comrades killed in this advance and of the thirty-one wounded 
and of the many sick from exposure, the Americans on the Kodish force 
as well as the English marines and Scots who also had lost severely, were 
loath to stop with so easy a victory in sight. 

Of course General Ironside's main idea was right, but its application at 
that time and place seemed to work hardship on the Kodish force. And the 
sequel proves it. To add to their discomfort, the very size of this force 
which had struggled so valiantly this little distance, was now reduced by 
the withdrawal of the English marines and of "L" Company, and by the 
ordering of the Canadian artillery guns to the Dvina front. The remaining 
force with Captain Donoghue totalled one hundred and eighty men, which 
seemed very small to them, in view of the fact that a mere reconnoitering 
patrol from the Bolos now returning to activity always showed anywhere 
from seventy-five to one hundred rifles and a machine gun or two. However, 
they made the best of their remaining days in October to fortify the Kodish- 
Avda front sector of the road. The Yanks were to be prepared for the 
worst. And they got it. Let us take a look at the position held by these 
Americans. It is typical of the positions in which many of the far-flung 
detachments found themselves. 

At the seventeenth verst pole was a four-man outpost. At the sixteenth 
verst pole Lieut. Ballard had two of his machine guns, a Lewis gun crew 
and some forty-six men from "K" Company. Four versts behind him on the 
densely wooded road Lieut. Gardner with forty men and a Vickers gun was 
occupying the old Bolo dugouts. One verst further back in the big clearing 
was Kodish village, a place which by all the rules of field strategy was 
absolutely untenable. Here with four Vickers guns were the remainder 
of "K" Company along with the sick and the lame and the halt, scarce 
forty men really able to do active duty, but obliged to stay on to support 
their comrades. The nearest friendly troops, including their artillery, were 
back at Seletskoe, thirty versts away. On October 29th the Reds returned 
to Avda. The noise from that village and reports brought by patrols indi- 
cated that this enemy who erstwhile was on the run, and whom our high 
command now held lightly, was determined to regain Kodish. And while 
striking heavily at their enemy on the railroad as we have seen, the Red 
Guards now fell upon this single company of Americans strung out along 
the Kodish-Avda road. 

In the afternoon of November 1st the enemy drove in- our cossack post 
of "K" men at verst seventeen, began shelling us with his artillery and for 

60 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

several days kept raiding Ballard heavier and heavier. Meanvirhile Captain 
Donoghue sent out from Kodish every available man to strengthen the line. 
Night and day the men labored to erect additional defenses, with scarcely 
time to close an eye in sleep, patrolling all the trails on their flanks. On the 
fourth of November, the day the Reds were massed in such numbers on the 
railroad, they succeeded in forcing Ballard from his trenches at the sixteenth 
verst pole. He fell back to the new defenses at the fifteenth verst. It is 
related by his men that he passed between Bolo forces who lined the road 
but permitted the Americans to escape. 

Lieut. Gardner was now reinforced at the twelfth verst pole, for a patrol 
had lost a man somewhere on the river flank and it was thought that the 
enemy was preparing to pass by the flank and bag this body of American 
fighters by taking the newly constructed bridge on the Emtsa in the rear of 
Donoghue's small force. This bridge was their "only way home." 

Their worst fears came true. On the morning of the fifth of November 
these Yanks way out at front of Kodish, holding the enemy off desperately 
from the frontal attack, and endeavoring vainly to frustrate the flank at- 
tacks of their enemy in greatly superior numbers, suddenly heard great bursts 
of machine gun fire way towards the rear in the vicinity of Kodish. In- 
stantly they knew that Reds had worked down the river by the flank from 
Avda or even from Emtsa on the railroad and were attacking in force three 
miles to their rear. That made the situation desperate. But the Yanks who 
had in the beginning of the campaign been looked down upon by the Red 
Capped British High Command because of their greenness, now showed their 
fineness of fighting stuff by fighting on with undiminished vigor and effective- 
ness. Nowhere did they give way. Day and night they were on the alert. 
Attacks from the front, sly raids from the woods on each side of the road, 
heart chilling assaults upon the cluster of houses in Kodish way in their 
rear, and steady progress of the Red Guards toward the bridge on the Emtsa, 
their only way out of the bag in which the worn and depleted company was 
being trapped, brought the prolonged struggle to a crisis in the middle of 
the afternoon of the eighth of November. 

It came as follows : Colonel Hazelden, survivor of the disaster earlier in 
the fall, as already related, had returned to command the Kodish-Shred 
Makhrenga fronts, when Col. Gavin was sent to command the railroad 
front where Colonel Sutherland had fizzled. 

This gallant officer was on his way' to the perilous front to see Ballard. 
Just as he passed Gardner at the twelfth verst pole, he found himself and the 
two detachments of Americans at last completely cut off by a whole bat- 
talion of Red Guards fresh from the south of Russia, sent up by Trotsky 
to brace his Northern Army. For half an hour there raged a fight as in- 
tense as was the bitter reality of the emergency to the forty Americans with 
Gardner in those dugouts. By almost miraculous luck in directing their fire 
through the screen of trees that shielded the Reds from view, Sgt. Crom- 
berger's Vickers gun and Cpl. Wilkie's Lewis gun inflicted terrible losses 
upon this fresh battalion just getting into action against the Americanskis. 
It was massed preparatory to the final dispositions of its commander to 

61 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

overwhelm the Americans. But with the hail of bullets tearing through their 
heavy ranks, the Bolos were unable long to stand it, and at last broke from 
control, yelling and screaming, to suffer still more from the well-handled 
guns when they left their cover and ran for the woods. And so the little 
force was saved. But so loud and prolonged were the yells of the frightened 
and wounded Reds that Captain Donoghue, a verst in the rear at his field 
headquarters, he related afterwards, paced the floor of the log shack in an 
agony of certainty that his brave men were all gone. He had been sure 
that the howling of the scattered pack had been the fervent yells of a last 
bayonet charge wiping out the Yankees. 

The Reds could not get themselves together for another attack at this 
point before dark but did drive Ballard back verst after verst that after- 
noon. It was a grim handful of "M. G." and "K" men who looked at their 
own losses and counted the huge enemy losses of that desperate day and 
wondered how many such days would whittle them off to the point of an- 
nihilation. Col. Hazelden had gone back to headquarters. Captain Don- 
oghue now acted with his usual decisiveness. 

The Americanskis had slipped out of the bag before the Red string was 
tied. And in the morning of the 9th of November the good old Vickers guns 
and Lewis guns were peeking from their old concealed strongholds on the 
American side of the Emtsa. Artillery support was reported on the way to 
argue with the Bolo artillery. A platoon of "L" Company which had come 
up during the last of the fighting, together with a platoon of replacement 
men from the old Division in France, who had just come across the trail 
from the railroad, now took over the active defense of the bridge. 

Both sides began digging in. American Engineers came up to build block 
houses. And the fagged warriors of machine gun and "K" infantry men 
now retired a short distance to the rear to make themselves as comfortable 
as possible in the woods, and try to forget their recent harrowing experiences 
and the sight of the seven bleeding stretchers that were part of the cost of 
trying to hold a place that was a veritable death trap. Here it was that 
Major Nichols on a look-see from the railroad detachments found them. He 
had been sent across by the French colonel commanding Vologda force, 
under which this Kodish force had recently been brought. He was the first 
American field officer that had come to inspect this hard-battered outfit. And 
his report on their miserable plight had no little influence in bringing, them 
relief. 

Shortly afterward "K" Company was relieved by "E" Company which had 
come down from Archangel guard duty, and "K" Company went to reserve 
position in Seletskoe and later marched across the trail to Obozerskaya, took 
troop train to Archangel for a much needed and highly deserved two weeks' 
change of scenery and rest, arriving one evening in November in an early 
winter's snow storm at Smolny Quay where the "M" Company men captured 
them and their luggage and carried them off to a big feed, first one they 
had had in Russia. Lieut. Ballard's heroic machine gun platoon a few days 
later was also relieved, by Lieut. O'Callaghan's platoon. So ended the fall 
campaign on the famous Kodish front. 

62 



VII 

Penetrating To Ust Padenga 

Taking Of Shenkursk On Vaga — "Horse Marines" — Battling At Puia— 
Bad Position For Troops — Retirement To Ust Padenga — Critical Sit- 
uation — "C" Company Stands Heavy Losses — Lieutenant Cuff And 
Men Killed In Hand To Hand Fighting^Bolshevik Patrols — 
Cossack Forces Weak On Defense. 

While the old first battalion was, as we have seen, fighting up to Seltso on 
the Dvina River, numerous reports were coming in daily that a strong 
force of the Bolsheviki were operating on the Vaga River. This river is 
a tributary of the Dvina and empties into it at a village called Ust Vaga, 
about thirty versts below Beresnik and on which is located the second 
largest town or city in the province of Archangel. This river was strategic- 
ally of more value than the upper Dvina, because, as a glance at the map 
will show, its possession threatened the rear of both the Dvina and the 
Kodish columns. Accordingly, on the fifteenth day of September, accom- 
panied by a river gunboat, the remaining handful of Company "A", com- 
prising t^yo platoons, under Capt. Odjard and Lieut. Mead, went on board 
a so-called fast river steamer en route to Shenkursk. On the seventeenth 
day of September this detachment took possession of Shenkursk without 
firing a single shot, the Bolsheviki having fled in disorder upon word of 
our arrival. The citizens of this village turned out en masse to welcome 
us as their deliverers, and the Slavo-British Allied Legion soon gained a 
considerable number of new recruits. 

Shenkursk is a village about one hundred and twenty-five versts up the 
Vaga River from its junction with the Dvina River. It is by far one of 
the most substantial and prosperous in the province of Archangel. It differs 
very materially from all the surrounding country in that it is located on 
good sandy soil on a high bluff overlooking the river and is comparatively 
dry, even in wet weather. It is quite a summer resort town, has a number 
of well constructed brick buildings, half a dozen or more schools, a seminary, 
monastery, saw mill, and in many others respects is far above the average 
Russian village. 

Upon their arrival our troops were quartered in an old Cossack garrison, 
reminiscent of the days of the Czar. We prepared to settle down very com- 
fortably for the winter; Our dream of rest and quiet was rudely shattered, 
however, for two days later we were notified that the British command for 
the Vaga River troops was on its way to Shenkursk, and that we were to 
push further on down the river to stir up the enemy. Without question 
we were quite willing to leave the enemy rest in peace as long as he did 
not molest us, but such was not the fortune nor luck of war, and therefore, 
on September 1st, the small detachment of American troops, reinforced by 
some thirty or forty S. B. A. L. troops, went steaming up the Vaga River 

68 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

on the good ship "Tolstoy," a decrepit old river steamer on which we had 
mounted a pom pom and converted it into a "battle cruiser."' The troops 
immediately christened themselves the horse "marines" and the name was 
quite an appropriate one as later events proved. 

About noon that day Capt. Odjard and Lieut. Mead with two platoons 
arrived opposite a village named Gorka when suddenly without any warning 
the enemy, concealed in the woods on both sides of the river, opened up a 
heavy machine gun and rifle fire. Our fragile boat was no protection from 
this fire. To attempt to run around and withdraw in the shallow stream 
was next to impossible, so after a hasty consultation the commander grasped 
the horns of the dilemma by running the boat as close to the shore as 
possible, where the troops immediately swarmed overboard in water up to 
their waists, quickly gained the protection of the shore and spreading out 
in perfect skirmish order, poured a hot fire into the enemy, who was soon 
on the run. This advance continued for some several days until under 
the severe marching conditions, lack of food, clothing, etc., a halt was made 
at Rovdinskaya, a village about ninety versts from Shenkursk, and a few 
days later more reinforcements arrived under Lieuts. McPhail and Saari. 

A number of incidents on this advance clearly indicated that we were 
operating in hostile and very dangerous country. Our only line of com- 
munication with our headquarters was the single local telegraph line, which 
was constantly being cut by the enemy. At one time a large force of the 
enemy got in our rear and we were faced with the unpleasant situation of 
having the enemy completely surrounding us. Capt. Odjard determined 
upon a bold stroke. Figuring that by continuing the advance and striking 
a quick blow at the enemy ahead of us, those in the rear would anticipate 
the possibility of heavy reinforcements bringing up our rear. On October 
8th we engaged the enemy at the village of Puiya. We Inflicted heavy 
casualties upon him. He suffered no less than fifty killed and several 
hundred wounded. As anticipated, the enemy in our rear quickly withdrew 
and thus cleared the way for our retreat. We retired to Rovdinskaya, which 
position we held for several weeks. The situation was growing more des- 
perate day by day. Our rations were at the lowest ebb; cold weather had 
set in and the men were poorly and lightly clad, in addition to which our 
tobacco ration had long since been completely exhausted, which added much 
to the general dissatisfaction and lowering of the morale of the troops. 

With the approach of the Russian winter a new and dangerous problem 
presented itself. At the outset of the expedition it had been planned that 
the troops on the railroad front were to push well down the railroad to or 
beyond Plesetskaya. The Vaga Column was to go as far as Velsk and 
there establish a line of communication across to the railroad front. Unfor- 
tunately, their well-laid plans fell through and perhaps fortunately so. The 
forces of the railroad had been checked near Emtsa, far above Plesetskaya. 
The other troops on the Dvina had by this time retired to Toulgas and as 
a consequence the smallest force in the expedition, the Vaga Column, was 
now in the most advanced position of these three fronts, a very dangerous 
and poorly chosen military position. 

64 




o 



^ 





01 FICIAL PHOTO 



Pioneer Platoon Clearing Fire Lane 




Testing a Vickers Machine Gun 



S OFFICIAL PHOTO 




Doughboy Observing Bolo in Pagosta — Near Usf Padenga 



U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO 




Cossack Receiving First Aid, Vistavka 



U S OFFICIAL PHOTO 




Ready for Day's IT'orA- 




Flax Hung Up to Dry 




310th Engineers at Beresnik 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

To make matters still worse, from the village of Nyandoma on the 
Vologda railroad, there is a well defined winter trail, running straight 
across country to the village of Ust Padenga, located on the Vaga River, 
about half way between Shenkursk and Rovdinskaya. Rumors were con- 
stantly coming in that the Bolo was occupying the villages all along this 
trail in order to launch a big drive on Shenkursk as soon as winter set in. 
On these frozen, packed trails, troops, artillery, etc., could be moved as 
easily and readily as by rail. 

In order then to withdraw our lines and to add greater safety to the 
columns, it was finally decided to withdraw from Rovdinskaya to Ust 
Padenga. 

At one o'clock on the morning of October 18th, as we lay shivering and 
shaking in the cold and dismal marshes, which we chose to call our front 
line, orders came through for us to hold ourselves in readiness for a quick 
and rapid retreat the following morning. All that night we had Russian 
peasants, interpreters, etc., scouring the villages about us for horses and 
carts to assist in our withdrawal. At 6 :00 a. m. that morning the withdrawal 
began. The god of war, had he witnessed this strange sight that morning, 
must have recalled a similar sight a hundred years and more prior to that, 
at Moscow, when the army of the great Napoleon was scattered to the 
winds by the cavalry and infantry of the Russian hordes. Three hundred 
and more of the ludicrous two-wheeled Russian carts preceded us with the 
artillery, floundering, miring, and slipping in the sticky, muddy roads. 
Following at their rear, came the tired, worn aild exhausted troops — un- 
shaven, unkempt and with tattered clothing. They were indeed a pitiful 
sight. All that day they marched steadily on toward Ust Padenga. To add 
to the difficulty of the march, a light snow had fallen which made the roads 
a mere quagmire. Late that night we arrived at the position of Ust Padenga, 
which was to become our winter quarters and where later so many of our 
brave men were to lay down their lives in the snow and cold of the Russian 
forests. 

With small delay for rest or recuperation we at once began preparation 
for the defense of this position. Our main position and the artillery were 
stationed in a small village called Netsvetyavskaya, situated on a high bluff 
by the side of which meandered the Vaga River. In front of this bluff 
flowed the Padenga River, a small tributary of the Vaga, and at our right, 
all too close for safety, was located the forest. About ofle thousand yards 
directly ahead of us was located the village of Ust Padenga proper, which 
was garrisoned by a company of Russian soldiers. To our right and about 
seventeen hundred yards ahead of us on another bluff was located the village 
of Nijni Gora, to be the scene of fierce fighting in the snow. 

On the last day of October Company "A", which had been on this front 
for some forty days without a relief, were relieved by Company "C" and a 
battery of Canadian Artillery was also brought up to reinforce this position. 

All was now rather quiet on this front, but rumors more and more 
definite were coming in daily that the Bolo was getting ready to launch a 
big drive on this front. From the location of our troops here, several 

65 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

hundred miles and more from our base on the Dvina and with long drawn 
out lines of communication, some of the stations forty miles or so apart, 
it was apparent that if attacked by a large force, we would have to give way. 
It was also plainly apparent that in case the Vaga River force was driven 
back to the Dvina it would necessitate the withdrawal of the forces on the 
Dvina from their strongly fortified position at Toulgas — consequently, we 
received orders that this position at Ust Padenga must be held at all cost. 
Such was the critical position of the Americans sent up the river by order 
of General Poole on a veritable fool's errand. The folly of his so-called 
"active defense" of Archangel was to be exposed most plainly at Ust 
Padenga and Shenkursk in winter. 

By the middle of November the enemy was becoming more and more 
active in this vicinity. On the seventeenth day of November a small patrol 
of Americans and Canadians were ambushed and only one man, a Canadian, 
escaped. The ambush occurred in the vicinity of Trogimovskaya, a village 
about eight versts below Ust Padenga, where it was known that the Bolo 
was concentrating troops. 

On the morning of November 29th, acting under orders from British 
Headquarters, a strong patrol, numbering about one hundred men, was 
sent out at daybreak, under Lieut. Cuff of "C" Company, to drive the enemy 
out of this position. The only road or trail leading into this town ran 
through a dense forest. The snow, of course, was so deep in the forest 
that it was impossible to proceed by any other route than this roadway 
or trail. As this patrol was approaching one of the most dense portions 
of the forest they were suddenly met by an overwhelming attacking party, 
which had been concealed in the forest. The woods were literally swarming 
with them and after a sharp fight Lieut. Francis Cuff, one of the bravest 
and most fearless officers in the expedition, in command of the patrol, 
succeeded in withdrawing his platoon. 

A detachment of the patrol on the edge of the woods skirting the Vaga 
River was having considerable difficulty extricating itself, however, and 
without faltering Lieut. Cuff immediately deployed his men and opened 
fire again upon the enemy. During this engagement, he, with several other 
daring men, became separated from their fellows and it was at this time 
that he was severely wounded. He and his men, several of whom were 
also wounded, although cut off and completely surrounded, fought like 
demons and sold their lives dearly, as was evidenced by the enemy dead 
strewn about in the snow near them. The remains of these heroic men 
were later recovered and removed to Shenkursk, where they were buried 
almost under the shadows of the cathedral located there. 

During this period the thermometer was daily descending lower and 
lower; snow was falling continually and the days were so short and dark 
that one could hardly distinguish day from night. These long nights of 
bitter cold, with death stalking at our sides, was a terrible strain upon the 
troops. Sentries standing watch in the lonely snow and cold were constantly 
having feet, hands, and other parts of their anatomy frozen. Their nerves 
were on edge and they were constantly firing upon white objects that could 

66 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

be seen now and then prowling around in the snow. These objects as we 
later found were enemy troops clad in white clothing which made it almost 
impossible to detect them. 

About this time an epidemic of "flu" broke out in some of the villages. 
In view of the Russian custom of keeping the doors and windows of their 
houses practically sealed during the winter and with their utter disregard 
for the most simple sanitary precautions, small wonder it was that in a 
short time the epidemic was raging in practically every village within our 
lines. The American Red Cross and medical officers of the expedition at once 
set to work to combat the epidemic as far as the means at their disposal 
would permit. The Russian peasant, of course, in true fatalist fashion 
calmly accepted this situation as an inevitable act of Providence, which made 
the task of the Red Cross workers and others more difficult. The workers, 
however, devoted themselves to their errand of mercy night and day and 
gradually the epidemic was checked. This voluntary act of mercy and kind- 
ness had a great effect upon the peasantry of the region and doubtless gave 
them a better and more kindly opinion of the strangers in their midst than 
all the efforts of our artillery and machine guns ever could have done. And 
when in the winter horses and sleighs meant life or death to the doughboys, 
the peasants were true to their American soldier friends. 

After the fatal ambush of Lieutenant Cuff's patrol at Ust Padenga, "C" 
Company, was relieved about the first of December by Company "A." During 
the remainder of the month there was more or less activity on both sides 
of the line. About the fifth or sixth of the month, the enemy brought up 
several batteries of light field artillery in the dense forests and begun an 
artillery bombardment of our entire line. Fortunately, however, we soon 
located the position of their guns and our artillery horses were immed- 
iately hitched to the guns, and supported by two platoons of "A" Company 
under Captain Odjard and Lieut. Collar, swung into a position from which 
they obtained direct fire upon the enemy guns with the result that four 
guns were shortly thereafter put out of commission. 

From this time on, there were continual skirmishes between the outposts 
and patrols. The Bolo's favorite time for patroling was at night and dur- 
ing the early hours of the morning when everything was pitch dark. They 
all wore white smocks over their uniforms and they could easily advance 
within fifteen or twenty feet of our sentries and outposts without being seen. 
They were not always so fortunate, however, in this reconnoitering, as a 
picture on a following page proves which shows one of their scouts clad in 
the white uniform and cap, who was shot down by one of our sentries when 
he was less than fifteen feet away from the sentry. Outside of the terrific 
cold and the natural hardships of the expedition, the month of December 
was comparatively quiet on the Padenga front. 

However, in the neighborhood of Shenkursk there was a growing feeling 
that a number of the enemy troops were in nearby villages and that the 
enemy was constantly occupying more and more of them daily. In order 
to break up this growing movement and to assure the natives of the Shen- 
kursk region that we would brook no such interference or happenings within 

07 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

our lines, on the fifth of December, a strong detachment, consisting of 
Company "C" under Lieut. Weeks, and Russian infantry, mounted Cossacks, 
and a pom pom detachment, set out for Kodima about fifty versts north 
and east of Shenkursk toward the Dvina River. 

It was reported that there were about one hundred and fifty or two 
hundred of the enemy located in this village, who were breaking a trail 
through from the Dvina River in order that they could send across sup- 
porting troops from the Dvina for the attack on Shenkursk. Our detach- 
ment, after a day and a half's march, arrived in the vicinity of Kodima and 
prepared to take the position. At about the moment when the attack was to 
begin, it was found that the pom poms and the Vickers guns were not work- 
ing. The thermometer at this time stood at fifty below zero and the intense 
cold had frozen the oil in the buffers of the pom poms and machine guns, 
rendering them worse than useless. Fortunately, this was discovered in 
time to prevent any casualties, for it was later found that there were between 
five hundred and one thousand of the enemy located in this position and 
that they were intrenched in prepared positions and well equipped with 
rifles, machine guns and artillery. 

Our forces, of course, were compelled to retreat, but this maneuver nat- 
urally gave the enemy greater courage and the following week it was reported 
that they were advancing from Kodima on Shenkursk. We at once dispatched 
a large force of infantry, artillery, and mounted Cossacks to delay this 
advance. This maneuver was also a miserable failure, and it is not difficult 
to understand the reason for same when one considers that this detachment 
was composed of Americans, Canadians, and Russians, of every conceivable 
type and description, and orders issued to one body might be and usually 
were entirely misunderstood by the others. 

Shortly after this, however, the Cossack Colonel desired to vindicate his 
troops and a new attack was planned in which the Cossacks, supported by 
their own artillery, were to launch a drive against the enemy at Kodima. 
After a big night's pow-wow and a typical Cossack demonstration of swear- 
ing eternal allegiance to their leader and boasting of the dire punishment 
they were going to inflict upon the enemy, they sallied forth from Shen- 
kursk with their banners gaily flying. No word was heard from them 
until the following evening when just at dusk across the river came, gal- 
loping like mad, the first news-bearers of our valiant cohorts. On gaining 
the shelter of Shenkursk, most of them were completely exhausted and many 
of their horses dropped dead from over-exertion on the way, while others 
died in Shenkursk. 

Our first informants described at great detail a thrilling engagement in 
which they had participated and how they had fought until their ammunition 
became exhuasted, when they were forced to retreat. Others described in 
detail how Prince Aristoflf and his Adjutant, Captain Robins, of the British 
Army, had fought bravely to the last and when about to be taken prisoners, 
used the last bullets remaining in their pistols to end their lives, thus pre- 
venting capture. More and more of the scattered legion were constantly 
arriving, and each one had such a remarkably different story to tell from 

68 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

that of his predecessor, that by the following morning, we were all inclined 
to doubt all of the stories. 

However, it is true that Colonel Aristofif and Robins failed to return, 
and we were compelled for the time being to assume that at least part of the 
stories were true. The Cossacks immediately went into deep mourning for 
the loss of their valiant leader and affected great grief and sorrow. This, 
however, did not prevent them from ransacking the Colonel's headquarters 
and carrying off all his money and jewelry and, in fact, about everything 
that he owned. Four days later, however, in the midst of all this mourning 
and demonstrations, we were again treated to a still greater surprise, for 
that afternoon who should come riding into the village but the Colonel him- 
self along with his adjutant. It can be readily imagined what scrambling 
and endeavor there was on the part of the sorrowing ones to return unde- 
tected to the Colonel's headquarters his stolen property and belongings. 
For days thereafter, the garrison resounded to the cracking of the Colonel's 
knout, and this time the wailing and shedding of tears was undoubtedly 
more real than any that had been shed previously to that time. These various 
unfortunate affairs, while harmful enough in themselves, did far greater 
harm than such incidents would ordinarily warrant, in this respect, that 
they gave the enemy greater and greater confidence all along, meanwhile 
lowering the morale of our Russian cohorts as well as our own troops. 

And here we leave these hardy Yanks, far, far to the south of Archangel. 
When their story is picked up again in the narrative, it will be found to be 
one of the most thrilling stories in American military exploits. 



CO 



VIII 

Peasantry Of The Archangel Province 

Russian Peasant Born Linguist — Soldiers See Village Life — Communal 
Strips Of Land Tilled By Grandfather^s Methods — Ash Manure^ — 
Rapid Growth During Days Of Perpetual Daylight — Sprinkling 
Cattle With Holy Water — "Sow In Mud And You Will Be A 
Prince" — Cabbage Pie At Festival — Home-Brewed "Braga" More Vil- 
lainous Than Vodka — Winter Occupations And Sports — North Rus- 
sian Peasants Less Illiterate Than Commonly Supposed. 

The province of Archangel is in the far north or forest region of Russia. 
It is a land of forest and morass, plentifully supplied with water in the 
form of rivers, lakes and marshes, along the banks of which are scant 
patches of cultivated land, which is invariably the location of a village. 
Throughout the whole of this province the climate is very severe. For 
more than half of the year the ground is covered by deep snow and the 
rivers are completely frozen. The arable land all told forms little more 
than two per cent of the vast area. The population is scarce and averages 
little more at the most than two to the square mile, according to the latest 
figures, about 1905. 

During the late fall and early winter, shortly after Company "A" had 
been relieved at Ust Padenga, we were stationed in the village of Shegovari. 
Here we had considerable leisure at our disposal and consequently the writer 
began devoting more time to his linguistic studies. Difficult as the language 
seems to be upon one's first introduction to it, it was not long before I was 
able to understand much of what was said to me, and to express myself in 
a vague roundabout way. In the latter operation I was much assisted by 
a peculiar faculty of divination which the Russian peasant possesses to a 
remarkably high degree. If a foreigner succeeds in expressing about one- 
fourth of an idea, the Russian peasant can generally fill up the remain- 
ing three-fourths from his own intuition. This may perhaps be readily 
understood when one considers that a great majority of the upper classes 
speak French or German fluently and a great number English as well. Then, 
too, the many and varied races that have united and intermingled to form 
the Russian race may offer an equally satisfactory explanation. 

Shegovari may be taken as a fair example of the villages throughout 
the northern half of Russia, and a brief description of its inhabitants will 
convey a correct notion of the northern peasantry in general. The village 
itself is located about forty versts above Shenkursk on the banks of the Vaga 
river, which meanders and winds about the village so that the river is 
really on both sides. On account of this location there is more arable land 
surrounding the village! than is found in the average community and dozens 
of villages are clustered about this particular location, the villages devot- 
ing most of their time to agricultural pursuits. 

71 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

I believe it may safely be said that nearly the whole of the female popula- 
tion and about one-half the male inhabitants are habitually engaged in cul- 
tivating the communal land, which comprises perhaps five hundred acres of 
light, sandy soil. As is typical throughout the province this land is divided 
into three large fields, each of which is again subdivided into strips. The 
first field is reserved for one of the most important grains, i. e., rye, which 
in the form of black bread, is the principal food of the population. In the 
second are raised oats for the horses and here and there some buckwheat 
which is also used for food. The third field lies fallow and is used in the 
summer for pasturing the cattle. 

This method of dividing the land is so devised in order to suit the 
triennial rotation of crops, a very simple system, but quite practical never- 
theless. The field which is used this year for raising winter grain, will be 
used next summer for raising summer grain and in the following year will 
lie fallow. Every family possesses in each of the two fields under cultiva- 
tion one or more of the subdivided strips, which he is accountable for and 
which he must cultivate and attend to. 

The arable lands are of course carefully manured because the soil at its 
best is none too good and would soon exhaust it. In addition to manuring 
the soil the peasant has another method of enriching the soil. Though 
knowing nothing of modern agronomical chemistry, he, as well as his fore- 
fathers, have learned that if wood be burnt on a field and the ashes be mixed 
with the soil, a good harvest may be expected. This simple method accounts 
for the many patches of burned forest area, which we at first believed to be 
the result of forest fires. When spring comes round and the leaves begin 
to appear, a band of peasants, armed with their short hand axes, with 
which they are most dextrous, proceed to some spot previously decided 
upon and fell all trees, great and small within the area. If it is decided to 
use the soil in that immediate vicinity, the fallen trees are allowed to 
remain until fall, when the logs for building or firewood are dragged away 
as soon as the first snow falls. The rest of the piles, branches, etc., are 
allowed to remain until the following spring, at which time fires may be 
seen spreading in all directions. If the fire does its work properly, the whole 
of the space is covered with a layer of ashes, and when they have been 
mixed with the soil the seed is sown, and the harvest, nearly always good, 
sometimes borders on the miraculous. Barley or rye may be expected to 
produce about six fold in ordinary years and they may produce as much 
as thirty fold under exceptional circumstances ! 

In most countries this method of treating the soil would be an absurdly 
expensive one, for wood is entirely too valuable a commodity to be used 
for such a purpose, but in this northern region the forests are so boundless 
and the inhabitants so few that the latter do not make any great inroad upon 
the former. 

The agricultural year in this region begins in April, with the melting 
snows. Nature which has been lying dormant for some six months, now 
awakes and endeavors to make up for lost time. No sooner does the snow 
disappear than the grass immediately sprouts forth and the shrubs and 

73 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

trees begin to bud. The rapidity of this transition from winter to spring 
certainly astonished the majority of us, accustomed as we were to more 
temperate cHmes. 

On the Russian St. George's Day, April 23rd, according to the old Russian 
calendar, or two weeks later according to our calendar, the cattle are brought 
forth from their winter hibernation and sprinkled with holy water by the 
priest. They are never very fat at any time of the year but at this par- 
ticular period of the year their appearance is almost pitiful. During the 
winter they are kept cooped up in a shed, usually one adjoining the house 
or under the porch of same with very little, if any,, light or ventilation, and 
fed almostly exclusively orl straw. It is quite remarkable that there is one 
iota of life left in them for when they are thus turned out in the spring 
they look like mere ghosts of their former selves. With the horses it is a 
different matter for it is during the winter months in this region that the 
peasants do most of their traveling and the horse is constantly exposed to 
the opposite extreme of exposure and the bleak wind and cold, but is well 
fed. 

Meanwhile the peasants are impatient to begin the field labor — it is an 
old Russian proverb known to all which says : "Sow in mud and you will 
be a prince," and true to this wisdom they always act accordingly. As sbon 
as it is possible to plough they begin to prepare the land for the summer 
grain and this labor occupies them probably till the end of May. Then comes 
the work of carting out manure, etc., and preparing the fallow field for the 
winter grain which will last until about the latter part of June when the 
early hay making generally begins. After the hay making comes the harvest 
which is by far the busiest time of the year. From the middle of July — 
especially from St. Elijah's day about the middle of July, when the Saint 
according to the Russian superstition, may be heard rumbling along the 
heavens in his chariot of fire — until the end of August or early September 
the peasant may work day and night and yet find that he has barely time 
to get all his work done. During the summer months the sun in this region 
scarcely ever sets below the horizon and the peasant may often be found 
in the fields as late as twelve o'clock at night trying to complete the day's 
work. In a little more than a month from this time he has to reap and 
stack his grain, oats, rye and whatever else he may have sown, and to sow 
his winter grain for the next year. To add to the difficulty both grains 
often ripen about the same time and then it requires almost superhuman 
efforts on his part to complete his task before the first snow flies. 

When one considers that all this work is done by hand — the planting, 
plowing, reaping, threshing, etc., in the majority of cases by home made 
instruments, it is really a more remarkable thing that the Russian peasant 
accomplishes so much in such a short space of time. About the end of 
September, however, the field labor is finished and on the first day of October 
the harvest festival begins. At this particular season of the year our troops 
on the Vaga river were operating far below Shenkursk in the vicinity of 
Rovdinskaya and it was our good fortune to witness a typical parish fete — 
celebrated in true Russian style. While it is true during the winter months 

73 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

that the peasant lives a very frugal and simple life, it is not in my opinion 
on account of his desire so to do but more a matter of necessity. During 
the harvest festivals the principal occupation of the peasant seems to be 
that of eating and drinking. In each household large quantities of braga or 
home brewed beer is prepared and a plentiful supply of meat pies are con- 
stantly on hand. There is also another delectable dish, which I am sure 
did not appeal to our troops to the fullest extent. It was a kind of pie 
composed of cabbage and salt fish, but unless one was quite accustomed to 
the odor, he could not summon up sufficient courage to attack this viand. 
It, however, was a very popular dish among the peasants. 

After a week or so of this preparation the fete day finally arrives and 
the morning finds the entire village attending a long service in the village 
church. All are dressed in their very best and the finest linens and bright- 
est colors are very much in evidence. After the service they repair to their 
different homes — of course many of the poorer ones go to the homes of the 
more well to do where they are very hospitably received and entertained. 
All sit down to a common table and the eating begins. I attended a dinner 
in a well-to-do peasant's house that day and before the meal was one- 
third through I was ready to desist. The landlord was very much displeased 
and I was informed confidentially by one of the Russian officers who had 
invited me that the landlord would take great offense at the first to give up 
the contest— and that as a matter of fact instead of being a sign of poor 
breeding, on the contrary it was considered quite the thing to stuff one's 
self until he could eat no more. As the meal progressed great bowls of 
braga and now and then a glass of vodka were brought in to help along 
the repast. After an almost interminable time the guests all rose in a body 
and facing the icon crossed themselves — then bowing to the host — made cer- 
tain remarks which I afterward found out meant, "Thanks for your bread 
and salt" — to which the host replied, "Do not be displeased, sit down once 
more for goodluck," whereupon all hands fell to again and had it not been 
for a mounted messenger galloping in with important messages, I am of the 
opinion that we would probably have spent the balance of the day trying 
not to displease our host. 

If the Russian peasant's food were always as good and plentiful as at 
this season of the year, he would have little reason to complain, but this 
is by no means the case. Beef, mutton, pork and the like! are entirely too 
expensive to be considered as a common article of food and consequently 
the average peasant is more or less of a vegetarian, living on cabbage, 
cabbage soup, potatoes, turnips and black bread the entire winter — varied 
now and then with a portion of salt fish. 

From the festival time until the following spring there is no possibility 
of doing any agricultural work for the ground is as hard as iron and covered 
with snow. The male peasants do very little work during these winter 
months and spend most of their time lying idly upon the huge brick stoves. 
Some of them, it is true, have some handicraft that occupies their winter 
hours ; others will take their guns and a little parcel of provisions and wander 
about in the trackless forests for days at a time. If successful, he may 

74 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

bring home a number of valuable skins — such as ermine, fox and the like. 
Sometimes a number of them associate for the purpose of deep sea fishing, 
in which case they usually start out on foot for Kem on the shores of 
the White Sea or for the far away Kola on the Murmansk Coast. Here 
they must charter a boat and often times after a month or two of this fishing 
they will be in debt to the boat owner and are forced to return with an 
empty pocket. While we were there we gave them all plenty to do — village 
after village being occupied in the grim task of making barb wire entangle- 
ments, etc., building block houses, hauling logs, and driving convoys. This 
was of course quite outside their usual occupation and I am of the impres- 
sion that they were none to favorably impressed — perhaps some of them 
are explaining to the Bolo Commisars just how they happened to be en- 
gaged in these particular pursuits. 

For the female part of the population, however, the winter is a very 
busy and well occupied time. For it is during these long months that the 
spinning and weaving is done and cloth manufactured for clothing and other 
purposes. Many of them are otherwise engaged in plaiting a kind of rude 
shoe — called lapty, which is worn throughout the summer by a great number 
of the peasants — and I have seen some of them worn in extremely cold 
weather with heavy stockings and rags wrapped around the feet. This was 
probably due to the fact, however, that leather shoes and boots were almost 
a thing of the past at that time, for it must be remembered that Russia had 
been practically shut off from the rest of the world for almost four years 
during the period of the war. The evenings are often devoted to besedys — 
a kind of ladies' guild meeting, where all assemble and engage in talking over 
village gossip, playing games and other innocent amusements, or spinning 
thread from flax. 

Before closing this chapter, I wish to comment upon an article that I 
read some months ago regarding what the writer thought to be a surprising 
abundance of evidence disproving the common idea of illiteracy among the 
Russian peasants. It is admitted that the peasants of this region are above 
the average in the way of education and ability, but as I have later learned 
they are not an average type of the millions of peasants located in the 
interior and the south of Russia, whose fathers and forefathers and many 
of themselves spent the greater part of their lives as serfs. While the 
peasants of this region nominally may have come under the heading of 
serfs, yet when they were first driven into this country for the purpose of 
colonization and settlement by Peter the Great, they were given far greater 
liberties than any of the peasants of the south enjoyed. They were settled 
on State domains and those that lived on the land of landlords scarcely 
ever realized the fact, inasmuch as few of the landed aristocracy ever spent 
any portion of their time in the province of Archangel unless compelled to 
do so. In addition to this liberty and freedom, there was also the stimulat- 
ing effect of the cold, rigorous climate and therefore it is more readily under- 
stood why the peasants of this region are more energetic, more intelligent, 
more independent and better educated than the inhabitants of the interior 
to the south. 

75 



THE A ^I ERICA N EXPEDITION 

After becoming somewhat acquainted with the family life of the peasantry, 
and no one living with them as intimately as we did, could have failed 
to have become more than ordinarily acquainted, we turned our attention 
to the local village government or so-called Mir. We had early learned that 
the chief personage in a Russian village was the starosta, or village elder, 
and that all important communal affairs were regulated by the Selski Skhod 
or village assembly. We were also well acquainted with the fact that the 
land in the vicinity of the village belonged to the commune, and was dis- 
tributed periodically among the members in such a way that every able 
bodied man possessed a share sufficient for his maintenance, or nearly so. 
Beyond this, however, few of us knew little or nothing more. We were for- 
tunate in having with us a great number of Russian born men, who of 
course were our interpreters, one of whom, by the way. Private Cwenk, was 
killed on January 19th, 1919, in the attack of Nijni Gora when he refused 
to quit his post, though mortally injured, until it was too late for him to 
make his escape. 

Through continual conversations and various transactions with the peas- 
ants (carried on of course through our interpreters) the writer gradually 
learned much of the village communal life. While at first glance there are 
many points of similarity between the family life and the village life, yet 
there are also many points of difference which will be more apparent as we 
continue. In both, there is a chief or ruler, one called the khosain or head 
of the house and the other as above indicated, the starosta or village elder. 
In both cases too there is a certain amount of common property and a com- 
mon responsibility. On the other hand, the mutual relations are far from 
being so closely interwoven as in the case of the household. 

From these brief remarks it will be readily apparent that a Russian vil- 
lage is quite a different thing from a provincial town or village in America. 
While it is true in a sense that in our villages the citizens are bound together 
in certain interests of the community, yet each family, outside of a few indi- 
vidual friends, is more or less isolated from the rest of the community — 
each family having little to interest it in the affairs of the other. In a 
Russian Village, however, such a state of indifference and isolation is quite 
impossible. The heads of households must often meet together and consult 
in the village assembly and their daily duties and occupations are controlled 
by the communal decrees. The individual cannot begin to mow the hay or 
plough the fields until the assembly has decided the time for all to begin. 
If one becomes a shirker or drunkard every one in the village has a right 
to complain and see that the matter is at once taken care of, not so much 
out of interest for the welfare of the shirker, but from the plain selfish 
motive that all the families are collectively responsible for his taxes and 
also the fact that he is entitled to a share in the communal harvest, which 
unless he does his share of the work, is taken from the common property 
of the whole. 

As heretofore stated on another page of this book, the land belonging 
to each village is distributed among the individual families and for which 
each is responsible. It might be of interest to know how this distribution 

76 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

is made. In certain communities the old-fashioned method of simply taking 
a census and distributing the property according to same is still in use. 
This in a great many instances is quite unfair and works a great hardship 
— where often the head of the household is a widow with perhaps four 
or five girls on her hands and possibly one boy. Obviously, she cannot 
hope to do as much as her neighbor, who, perhaps, in addition to the father, 
may have three or four well-grown boys to assist him. It might be logically 
suggested, then, that the widow could reni; the balance of her share of 
the land and thus take care of same. If land were in demand in Russia, 
especially in the Archangel region, as it is in the farming communities 
of this country, it might be a simple matter — but in Russia often the posses- 
sion of a share of land is quite often not a privilege but a decided hardship. 
Often the land is so poor that it cannot be rented at any price, and in the 
old days it was quite often the case that even though it could be rented, 
the rent would not be sufficient to pay the taxes on same. Therefore, each 
family is quite well satisfied with his share of the land and is not looking 
for more trouble and labor if they can avoid it, and at the assembly meetings, 
when the land is distributed each year, it is amusing to hear the thousand- 
and-one excuses for not taking more land, as the following brief description 
will illustrate. 

It is assembly day, we will imagine, and all the villagers are assembled 
to do their best from having more land and its consequent responsibilities 
thrust upon them. Nicholas is being asked how many shares of the com- 
munal land he will take, and after due deliberation and much scratching 
of the head to stir up the cerebral processes (at least we will assume that 
is the function of this last movement) he slowly replies that inasmuch .as 
he has two sons he will take three shares for his family to farm, or perhaps 
a little less as his health is none too good, though as a matter of fact he 
may be one of the most ruddy-faced and healthiest individuals present. 

This last remark is the signal for an outburst of laughter and ridicule by 
the others present and the arguments pro and con wax furious. Of a sudden, 
a voice in the crowd cries out: "He is a rich moujik, and he should have 
five shares of the land as his burden at the least." 

Nicholas, seeing that the wave is about to overwhelm him, then resorts 
to entreaty and makes every possible explanation now why it will be utterly 
impossible for him to take five shares, his point now being to cut down 
this allotment if within his power. After considerable more discussion the 
leader of the crowd then puts the question to the assembly and inquires 
if it be their will that Nicholas take four shares. There is an immediate 
storm of assent from all quarters and this settles the question beyond 
further argument. 

This native shrewdness and spirit of barter is quite typical of the 
Russian peasant in all matters — large or small — and he greets the outcome 
of every such combat with stoical indifference, in typical fatalist fashion. 
The writer recalls one experience in the village of Shegovari on the 
occasion of our first occupation of this place. It was before the rivers had 
frozen over and headquarters at Shenkursk was getting ready to install the 

77 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

sledge convoy system which was our only means of transportation during 
the long winter months. Shegovari being a large and prosperous com- 
munity and there being a plentiful supply of horses, there, we were'^isaccord- 
ingly dispatched to this place to take over the town and buy up as- many 
horses as could be commandeered in this section. In company with a 
villainous looking detachment of Cossacks we set out from Shenkursk on 
board an enormous barge being towed by the river steamer "Tolstoy." On 
our way we became pretty well acquainted with Colonel Aristov, the com- 
mander of the Cossacks, who, through his interpreter, filled our ears 
with the various deeds of valor of himself and picked cohorts. He further 
informed us that the village where we were going was hostile to the Allied 
troops, and that there was some question just at that time as to whether 
it was not in fact occupied by the enemy. Consequently he had devised 
a very clever scheme, so he thought, for getting what we were after and 
incidentally putting horses on the market at bargain rates. 

We were to bivouac for the night some ten miles or so above the town 
and at early dawn v/e would steam down the river on our gunboat. If there 
were any signs of hostility we were at once to open up on the village with 
the pom pom mounted on board our cruiser, and the infantry were to 
follow up with an attack on land. The colonel's idea was that a little 
demonstration of arms would thoroughly cow the native villagers and there- 
fore they would be willing to meet any terms offered by him for the purchase 
of their horses. Fortunately or unfortunately (which side one considers) 
the plan failed to materialize, for when we anchored alongside the village 
the peasants were busily occupied in getting their supply of salt fish for 
the winter and merely took our arrival as one of the usual unfortunate 
visitations of Providence. The colonel at once sent for the starosla (the 
village elder as heretofore explained) who immediately presented himself 
with much bowing and scraping, probably wondering what further ill-luck 
was to befall him. The colonel with a great display of pomp and gesticulat- 
ing firmly impressed the starosta that on the following day all the peasants 
were to bring to this village their horses, prepared to sell them for the 
good of the cause. . . . The following morning the streets were lined 
up with horses and owners, and they could be seen coming from all directions. 
At about ten o'clock the parade began. Each peasant would lead his horse 
by the colonel, who would look them over carefully and then ask what the 
owner would take for his horse. Usually he would be met with a bow and 
downcast eyes as the owner replied : "As your excellency decides." "Very 
well, then, you will receive nine hundred roubles or some such amount." 
Instantly the air of submissiveness and meekness disappears and a torrent of 
words pours forth, eulogizing the virtues of this steed and the enormous 
sacrifice it would be to allow his horse to go at that price. After the usual 
haggling the bargain would be closed — sometimes at a greater figure and 
sometimes at a lesser. 

Now the amusing part of this transaction to me was that with my inter- 
preter we moved around amongst the crowd and got their own values as to 
some of these horses. What was our amazement some moments later to see 

78 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIK I 

them pass before the colonel who iil a number of cases ofifered them more 
than their estimates previously given to myself, whereupon they imniediately 
went through the maneuvers above described and in some cases actually 
obtained increases over the colonel's first hazard. 

This lesson later stood us in good stead, for some weeks later it devolved 
upon us to purchase harnesses and sleds for these very horses and the 
reader may be sure that such haggling and bargaining (all through an inter- 
preter) was never seen before in this part of the country. Somehow the 
word got around that the Amerikanskis who were buying the sleds and 
harness had gotten acquainted with the horse dealing' method of some weeks 
past and therefore it was an especial event to witness the sale and purchase 
of these various articles, and, needless to say, there was always an enthus- 
iastic crowd of spectators present to cheer and jibe at the various con- 
testants. All these various transactions must have resulted with the balance 
decidedly in favor of the villagers, for they were extremely pleasant and 
hospitable to us during our entire stay here and instead of bemg hostile 
were exactly the opposite, acutally putting themselves to a great amount 
of trouble time after time to meet with our many demands for logs and 
laborers, although they were in no way bound to do these things. 

In our dealings with the community here, as elsewhere, all transactions 
were carried on with the starosta or village head. We naturally figured 
that this officer was one of the highest and most honored men of the village, 
probably corresponding to the mayor of one of our own cities, but we were 
later disillusioned in this particular. It seems that each male member of 
the community must "do time" some time during his career as village elder, 
and each one tried to postpone the task just as long as it was in his power 
to do so. True it is that the starosta is the leader of his community 
during his regime, but therein is the difficulty, for coupled with this power 
is the further detail of keeping a strict and accurate account of all the 
business transactions of the year, all the moneys, wages, etc., due the 
various members for labors performed and services rendered. This, of 
course, is due to the fact that everything is owned in common by the com- 
mimity: Land, food products, wood, in short, practically all tangible 
property. 

Imagine, then, the starosta who, we will say, at eight or nine o'clock 
on a cold winter's night is called upon to have a dozen or more drivers 
ready the next morning at six o'clock to conduct a sledge convoy through 
to the next town,, another group of fifty or a hundred workmen to go into 
the forests and cut and haul logs for fortifications, and still others for as 
many different duties as oAe could imagine during time of war. He must 
furthermore see, for example, that the same drivers are properly called 
in turn, for it is the occasion of another prolonged verbal battle in case 
one is called out of his turn. During the day he is probably busily occupied 
in commandeering oats and hay for the convoy horses and when night 
comes he certainly has earned his day's repose, but his day does not end 
at nightfall as in the case of the other members of the commune. 

79 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

During our stay here, practically every night he would call upon the 
commanding officer to get orders for the coming day, to check over various 
claims and accounts and each week to receive pay for the entire community 
engaged in these labors. One occasion we distinctly recall as a striking 
example of this particular starosta's honesty and integrity. He had spent 
the greater part of the evening in our headquarters, checking over accounts 
involving some three or four thousand roubles for the pay roll the following 
day. Finally the matter was settled and the money turned over to him, 
jifter which we all retired to our bunks. At about one o'clock that morning 
the sentry on post near headquarters awakened us and said the starosta 
was outside and wished to see the commander, whereupon the C. O. sent 
word for him to come up to our quarters. After the usual ceremony of 
crossing himself before the icon the starosta announced that he had been 
overpaid about ninety roubles, which mistake he found after reaching his 
home and checking over the account again. We were too dumfounded to 
believe our ears. Here was this poor hard-working moujik who doubtless 
knew that the error would never have been discovered by ourselves, and, 
even if it had, the loss would have been trifling, yet he tramped back through 
the snow to get this matter straightened out before he retired to the top 
of the stove for the rtight. Needless to say, our C. O. turned the money 
back to him as a reward for his honesty, in addition to which he wa^ 
given several hearty draughts of rum to warm him up for his return 
journey, along with a small sack ofi sugar to appease his wife who, he said, 
always made things warmer for him when he returned home with the 
odor of rum about him. 



80 




S. OFFICIAL PHOTO 



Joe Chinzi and Russian Brids 




Watching Her Weave Cloth 




Doughboy Attends Spinning-Bee 



U S OFFICIAL PHOTO 




Doughboy in the Best Bed — On Stove 




Defiance to Bolo Advance 





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f:*^;-:«7 -^-r %^^/-i w.^^-.^~^^.-o^-^--'., ■ •:>■- -: 




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HkHHK 



557//i Hospital at Beresnik 




Onega 



RED CROSS PHOTO 










}'. M. V. A., Obozerskaya 



U S OFFICIAL PHOTO 



IX 

"H" Company Pushes Up The Onega Valley 

Two Platoons Of "H" Company By Steamer To Onega — Occupation Of 
Chekuevo — BoLSHEviKi GivE Battle — Big Order To Little Force — 
Kaska Too Strongly Defended — Doughboys' Attack Fails — Cossacks 
Spread False Report — Successful Advance Up Valley — Digging In 
For Winter. 

Meanwhile "H" Company was pushing up the Onega Valley. Stories had 
leaked out in Archangel of engagements up the Dvina and up the railroad 
where American soldiers had tasted first sweets of victory, and "H" men now 
piled excitedly into a steamer at Archangel on the 15th of September and 
after a 24-hour ride down the Dvina, across the Dvina Bay up an arm of the 
White Sea called Onega Bay and into the mouth of the Onega River, landed 
without any opposition and took possession. The enemy had been expelled 
a few days previously by a small detachment of American sailors from the 
"Olympia." 

The "H" force consisted of two platoons commanded by Lieuts. Phillips 
and Pellegrom, who reported to an English officer, Col. Clark. 

The coming of Americans was none too soon. The British officer had not 
made much headway in organizing an effective force of the anti-Bolshevik 
Russians. The Red Guards were massing forces in the upper part of the 
valley and, German-like, had sent notice of their impending advance to re- 
capture the city of Onega. 

On September 18th Lieut. Pellegrom received verbal orders from Col. 
Clark to move his platoon of fifty-eight men with Lieut. Nugent, M. R. C, 
and one man at once to Chekuevo, about fifty miles up the river. 

Partly by boat and partly by marching the Americans reached the village 
of Chekuevo and began organizing the defenses, on the 19th. Three days 
later Lieut. Phillips was hurried up with his platoon to reinforce and take 
command of the hundred and fifteen Americans and ninety-three Russian 
volunteers. At dawn on the twenty-fourth the enemy attacked our positions 
from three sides with a force of three hundred and fifty men and several 
machine guns. 

The engagement lasted for five hours. The main attack coming down the 
left bank of the Onega River was held by the Americans till after the enemy 
had driven back the Allies, Russians, on the right bank and placed a machine 
gun on our flank. 

Then the Americans had to give ground on the main position and the 
Reds placed another machine gun advantageously. Meanwhile smaller parties 
of the enemy were working in the rear. Finally the enemy machine guns 
were spotted and put out of action by the superior fire of our Lewis auto- 
matics, and the Bolshevik leader, Shiskin, was killed at the gun. This suc- 
cess inspirited the Americans who dashed forward and the Reds broke and 
fled. A strong American combat patrol followed the retreating Reds for five 

81 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

miles and picked up much clothing, ammunition, rifles, and equipment, and 
two of his dead, ten of his wounded and one prisoner and two machine guns. 
Losses on our side consisted of two wounded. Our Russian allies lost two 
killed and seven wounded. 

The action had been carried on in the rain under very trying conditions 
for the Americans who were in their first fire fight and reflected great credit 
upon Lieut. Phillips and his handful of doughboys who were outnumbered 
more than three to one and forced to give battle in a place well known to 
the enemy but strange to the Americans and severely disadvantageous. 

Outside of a few patrol combats and the capture of a few Bolshevik 
prisoners the remainder of the month of September was uneventful. 

The Onega Valley force, like the Railway and Kodish forces, was sparring 
for an opening and plans were made for a general push on Plesetskaya. On 
September 30th Lieut. Phillips received an order as follows : 

"The enemy on the railway line is being attacked today (the 29th) 
and some Cossacks are coming to you from Obozerskaya. On their ar- 
rival you will move south with them and prevent enemy from retiring 
across the river in a westerly direction. 

"Open the wire to Obozerskaya and ascertain how far down the line 
our troops have reached and then try to keep abreast of them but do not 
go too far without orders from the 0/CA force (Col. Sutherland at 
Obozerskaya). I mean by this that you must not run your head against 
a strong force which may be retiring unless you are sure of holding 
your ground. There is a strong force at Plesetskaya on the railway and 
it is possible that they may retire across your front in the direction of 
the line running from Murmansk to Petrograd. The commandant of 
Chekuevo must supply you with carts for rations and, as soon as you 
can, make arrangements for food to be sent to you from the railway. 
The S. S. service can run up to you with supplies and can keep with you 
until you reach the rapids, if you go so far. Don't forget that the enemy 
has a force at Turchesova, south of you. Keep the transports in the 
middle of your column so that no carts get cut off, and it would be a 
good thing if you could get transport from village to village. 

"Captain Burton, R. M. L. I., will remain in command at Chekuevo." 

W. J. CLARK, Lieut-Col. 

The Americans knew that this was a big contract, but let us now look 
at the map and see what the plan really called for. Forty miles of old 
imperial telegraph and telephone line to the eastward to restore to use be- 
tween Chekuevo and Obozerskaya. No signal corps men and no telling where 
the wires needed repair. And sixty miles more or less to the south and east- 
ward on another road to make speed with slow cart transport with orders 
to intercept an enemy supposed to be preparing to flee westward from the 
railway. Not forgetting that was to be done in spite of the opposition of a 
strong force of Red Guards somewhere in the vicinity of Turchesova thirty- 
five miles up the valley. "A little job, you know,'' for those one hundred and 
fifteen Americans, veterans of two weeks in the wilds of North Russia. 

82 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

The American officer from his reconnaissance patrols and from friendly 
natives learfied that the enemy instead of seeking escape was massing forces 
for another attack on the Americans. 

About seven hundred of the Red Guards were heavily entrenched in and 
around Kaska and were recruiting forces. In compliance with his orders, 
Lieut. Phillips moved out the next morning, October 1st, with the eighteen 
mounted Cossacks, joined in the night from Obozerskaya, and his other anti- 
Bolshevik Russian volunteer troops. Movement began at 2:30 a. m. with 
about eight miles to march in the dark and zero hour was set for five o'clock 
daybreak. Two squads of the Americans and Russian volunteers had been 
detached by Lieut. Phillips and given to the command of Capt. Burton to 
make a diversion attack on Wazientia, a village across the river from Kaska. 
Lieut. Pellegrom was to attack the enemy in flank from the west while Lieut. 
Phillips and the Cossacks made the frontal assault 

Phillip's platoon was early deserted by the Cossacks and, after advancing 
along the side of a sandy ridge to within one hundred yards of the enemy, 
found it necessary to dig in. Lieut. Pellegrom on the flank on account of 
the nature of the ground brought his men only to within three hundred 
yards of the enemy lines and was unable to make any communication with 
his leader. Captain Burton was deserted by the volunteers at first fire and 
had to retreat with his two squads of Americans. The fire fight raged all 
the long day. Phillips was unable to extricate his men till darkness but held 
his position and punished the enemy's counter attacks severely. The enemy 
commanded the lines with heavy machine guns and the doughboys who 
volunteered to carry messages from one platoon to the other paid for their 
bravery with their lives. Believing himself to be greatly outnumbered the 
American officer withdrew his men at 7 :30 p. m. to Chekuevo, with losses of 
six men killed and three wounded. Enemy losses reported later by deserters 
were thirty killed and fifty wounded. 

Again the opposing sides resorted to delay and sparring for openings. 
At Chekuevo the Americans strengthened the defenses of that important road 
junction and kept in contact with the enemy by daily combat patrols up the 
valley in the direction of Kaska, scene of the encounter. It was during this 
period that one day the "H'' men at Chekuevo were surprised by the appear- 
ance of Lieut. Johnson with a squad of "M" Company men who had patrolled 
the forty miles of Obozerskaya road to Chekuevo looking for signs of the 
enemy whom a mounted patrol of Cossacks sent from Obozerskaya had 
declared were in possession of the road and of Chekuevo. They learned 
from these men that on the railway, too, the enemy had disclosed astonish- 
ing strength of numbers and showed as good quality of fighting courage as at 
Kaska and had administered to the American troops their first defeat. They 
learned, too, that the French battalion was coming back onto the fighting 
line with the Americans for a heavy united smash at the enemy. 

A new party of some fifteen Cossacks relieved the eighteen Cossacks who 
returned to Archangel. The force was augmented materially by the coming 
of a French officer and twenty- five men from Archangel. 

83 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

The same boat brought out the remainder of "H" Company under com- 
mand of Capt. Carl Gevers, who set up his headquarters at Onega, October 
9th, under the new British 0/C Onega Det, Col. ("Tin Eye") Edwards, and 
sent Lieut. Carlson and his platoon to Karelskoe, a village ten miles to the 
rear of Chekuevo, to support Phillips. 

Success on the railroad front, together with information gathered from 
patrols led Col. Edwards to believe the enemy was retiring up the valley. 
An armed reconnaisance by the whole force at Chekuevo moving forward 
on both sides of the Onega River on October 19th, which was two days 
after the Americans on the railroad had carried Four Hundred and Forty-five 
by storm and the Bolo had "got up- his wind" and retired to Emtsa. Phillips 
found that the enemy had indeed retired from Kaska and retreated to 
Turchesova, some thirty-five miles up the valley. 

Phillips occupied all the villages along the river Kachela in force, send- 
ing his combat patrols south of Priluk daily to make contact. Winter showed 
signs of early approach and, in compliance with verbal orders of Col. Edwards 
at Onega, Phillips withdrew his forces to Chekuevo on October 25th. This 
seems to have been in accordance with the wise plan of the new British Com- 
manding General to extend no further the dangerously extended lines, but 
to prepare for active defense just where snow and frost were finding the 
various widely scattered forces of the expedition. On the way back through 
Kaska it was learned that two of the "H" men who had been reported 
missing in the fight at Kaska, but who were in fact killed, had been buried 
by the villagers. They were disinterred and given a regular military funeral, 
and graves marked. 

Outside of daily patrols and the reliefs of platoons changing about for 
rest at Onega there was little of excitement during the remainder of October 
and the month of November. Occasionally there would be a flurry, a "windy 
time" at British Headquarters in Onega and patrols and occupyng detach- 
ments sent out to various widely separated villages up the valley. There 
seems to have been an idea finally that the village of Kyvalanda should be 
fortified so as to prevent the Red Guards from having access to the valley 
of the Chulyuga, a tributary of the Onega River, up which in the winter ran 
a good road to Bolsheozerke where it joined the Chekuevo road to Obor- 
zerskaya. Wire was brought up and the village of Kyvalartda was strongly 
entrenched, sometimes two platoons being stationed there. 

Captain Gevers had to go to hospital for operation. This was a loss to 
the men. Here old Boreas came down upon this devoted company of dough- 
boys. They got into their winter clothing, gave attention to making them- 
selves as comfortable shelters as possible on their advanced outposts, organ- 
ized their sleigh transport system that had to take the place of the steamer 
service on the Onega which was now a frozen barrier to boats but a highway 
for sleds. They had long winter nights ahead of them with frequent snow 
storms and many days of severe zero weather. And though they did not 
suspect it they were to encounter hard fighting during and at the end of the 
winter. 

84 



X 

"G" Company Far Up The Pinega River 

Reds Had Looted Villages Of Pinega Valley — ^Winter Sees Bolsheviks 
Returning To Attack — Mission Of American Column — Pinega — 
Pinkish-White Political Color — Yank Soldiers Well Received — 
Take Distant Karpogora — Greatly Outnumbered Americans Retire — 
"Just Where Is Pinega Front?" 

In making their getaway from Archangel and vicinity at the time the 
Allies landed in Archangel, the Reds looted and robbed and carried off 
by rail and by steamer much stores of furs, and clothing and food, as 
well as the munitions and military equipment. What they did not carry 
by rail to Vologda they took by river to Kotlas. We have seen how they 
have been pursued and battled on the Onega, on the Railroad, on the Vaga, 
on the Dviila. Now we turn to the short narrative of their activities on 
the Pinega River. As the Reds at last learned tha:t the expedition was too 
;mall to really overpower them and had returned to dispute the AUielB on 
the other rivers, so, far up the Pinega Valley, they began gathering forces. 
The people of the lower Pinega Valley appealed to the Archangel govern- 
ment and the Allied military command for protection and for assistance 
in pursuing the Reds to recover the stores of flour that had been taken 
from the co-operative store associations at various points along the river. 
These co-operatives had bought flour from the American Red Cross. Ac- 
cordingly on October 20th Captain Conway with "G" Company set off on a 
fast steamer and barge for Pinega, arriving after three days and two nights 
with a force of two platoons, the other two having been left behind on 
detached service, guarding the ships in the harbor of Bakaritza. Here the 
American officer was to command the area, organize its defense and co- 
operate with the Russian civil authorities in raising local volunteers for the 
defense of the city of Pinega, which, situated at the apex of a great 
inverted "V" in the river, appeared to be the key point to the military and 
political situation. 

Pinega was a fine city of three thousand inhabitants with six or seven 
thousand in the nearby villages that thickly dot the banks of this broad 
expansion of the old fur-trading and lumber river port. Its people were 
progressive and fairly well educated. The city had been endowed by its 
millionaire old trader with a fine technical high school. It had a large 
cathedral, of course. Not far from it, two hours ride by horseback, an 
object of interest to the doughboy, was the three hundred-year-old monastery, 
white walls with domes and spires, perched upon the grey bluffs, in the hazy 
distance looking over the broad Pinega Valley and Soyla Lake, where the 
monks carried on their fishing. In Pinega was a fine community hall, a 
good hospital and the government buildings of the area. 

85 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

Its people had held a great celebration when they renounced allegiance 
to the Czar, but they had very sensibly retained some of his old trained 
local representatives to help carry on their government. Self government 
they cherished. When the Red Guards had been in power at Archangel 
they had of course extended their sway partially to this far-off area. But 
the people had only submitted for the time. Some of their able men had 
had to accept tenure of authority under the nominal overlordship of the 
Red commissars. And when the Reds fled at the approach of the Allies, 
the people of Pinega had punished a few of the cruel Bolshevik rulers 
that they caught but had not made any great eflfort to change all the officers 
of civil government even though they had been Red officials for a time. 
In fact it was a somewhat confused color scheme of Red and White civil 
government that the Americans found in the Pinega Valley. The writer 
commanded this area in the winter and speaks from actual experience 
in dealing with this Pinega local government, half Red as it was. The 
Americans were well received and took up garrison duty in the fall, raising 
a force of three hundred volunteers chiefly from the valley above Pinega, 
whose people were in fear of a return of the Reds and begged for a military 
column up the valley to deliver it from the Red agitators and recover their 
fiour that had been stolen. 

November 15th Captain CoHway, acting under British G. H. Q., Archangel, 
acceded to these requests and sent Lieut. Higgins with thirty-five Americans 
and two hundred and ten Russian volunteers to clear the valley and occupy 
Karpogora. 

For ten days the force advanced without opposition. At Marynagora 
an enemy patrol was encountered and the next day the Yanks drove back 
an enemy combat patrol. Daily combat patrol action did not interfere 
with their advance and on Thanksgiving Day the "G" Company boys after 
a little engagement went into Karpogora. They were one hundred and 
twenty versts from Pinega, which was two hundred and seven versts from 
Archangel, a mere matter of being two hundred miles from Archangel in 
the heart of a country which was politically about fifty-fifty between Red 
and White. But the Reds did not intend to have the Americans up there. 
On December 4th they came on in a much superior force and attacked. The 
Americans lost two killed and four wounded out of their little thirty-five 
Americans and several White Guards, and on order from Captain Conway, 
who hurried up the river to take charge, the flying column relinquished 
its hold on Karpogora and retired down the valley followed by the Reds. 
A force of White Guards was left at Visakagorka, and one at Trufanagora, 
and Priluk and the main White Guard outer defense of Pinega established 
at Pelegorskaya. 

Like the whole expedition into Russia of which the Pinega Valley 
force was only one minor part, the coming of the Allied troops had 
quieted the areas occupied but, in the hinterland beyond, the propaganda of 
the wily Bolshevik agents of Trotsky and Lenine succeeded quite naturally 
in inflaming the Rus'sians against what they called the foreign bayonets. 

86 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

And here at the beginning of winter we leave this handful of Americans 
holding the left sector of the great horseshoe line against a gathering 
force, the mutterings of whose Red mobs was already being heard and which 
was preparing a series of dreadful surprises for the Allied forces on thife 
Pinega as well as on other winter fronts. Indeed their activities in this 
peace-loving valley were to rise early in the winter to major importance 
to the whole expedition's fate and stories of this flank threat to Archangel 
and especially to the Dvina and Vaga line's of communication, where the 
Pinega Valley merges with the Dvina Valley, was to bring from our Amer- 
ican Great Headquarters in France the terse telegram: "Just where is the 
Pinega Front?" 

It was out there in the solid pine forests one hundred fifty miles to the 
east and north of Archangel. Out where the Russian peasant had rigged up 
his strange-looking but ingeniously constructed sahnia, or sledge. Where on 
the river he was planting in the ice long thick-set rows of pines or branches 
in double rows twice a sled length apart. These frozen-in lines of green 
were to guide the traveller in the long winter of short days and dark 
nights safely past the occasional open holes and at such times as he made 
his trip over the road in the blinding blizzards of snow. Out there where 
the peasant was changing from leather boots to felt boots and was hunt- 
ing up his scarfs and his great parki, or bearskin overcoat. That is where 
"G" Company, one hundred strong, was holding the little, but important, 
Pinega Front at the end of the fall campaign. 



87 



XI 

With Wounded and Sick 

Lest We Forget S. O. L. Doughboy — Column In Battle And No Medical 
Supplies — Jack-knifb Amputation — Sewed Up With Needle And 
Thread From Red Cross Comfort Kit — Diary Of American Medical 
Officer — Account Is Choppy But Full Of Interest. 

Some things the doughboy and officer from America will never have grace 
enough in his forgiving heart to ever forgive. Those were the outrageous 
things that happened to the wounded and sick in that North Russian cam- 
paign. Of course much was done and in fact everything was meant to be 
done possible for the comfort of the luckless wounded and the men who, 
from exposure and malnutrition, fell sick. But there were altogether too 
many things that might have been avoided. Lest we forget and go off again 
on some such strange campaign let us chronicle the story of the grief that 
came to the S. O. L, doughboy. 

One American medical officer who went up with the first column of 
Americans in the Onega River Valley in the fall never got through cuss- 
ing the British medical officer who sent him off with merely the handful 
of medical supplies that he, as a medical man, always carried for emergencies 
of camp. Story has already been told of the lack of medical supplies on 
the two "flu"-infected ships that took the soldiers to Russia. Never will the 
American doughboy forget how melancholy he felt when he saw the leaded 
shrouds go over the side of the sister ship where the poor Italians were 
suffering and dying. And the same ill-luck with medical supplies seemed 
to follow us to North Russia. 

Dr. Nugent, of Milwaukee, writes after the first engagement on the 
Onega front he was obliged to use needle and thread from a doughboys' 
Red Cross comfort kit to take stitches in six wounded men. 

Lieut. Lennon of "L" Company reports that during the first action of his 
Company on the Kodish Front in the fall, there was no medical officer 
with the unit in action. The American medical officer was miles in rear. 
Wounded men were bandaged on the field with first aid and carried back 
twenty-six versts. And he relates further that one man on the field suffered 
the amputation of his leg that day with a pocket knife. The officer further 
states that the American medical officer at Seletskoe was neglectful and 
severe with the doughboys. At one time there was no iodine, no bandages, 
no number 9's at Kodish Front. The medical officer under discussion was 
never on the front and gained the hearty dislike of the American dough- 
boys for his conduct. 

This matter of medical and surgical treatment is of such great importance 
that space is here accorded to the letter and diary notes of an American 
officer, Major J. Carl Hall, our gallant and efficient medical officer of the 

89 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

339th Infantry, who from his home in CentraHa, Illinois, August 6th, 1920, 
sends us a contribution as follows : 

"Take what you can use from this diary. Thought I would avoid the 
English antagonism throughout but later have decided to add the following 
incident at Shenkursk, December 12, 1918. I was ordered by the British 
General, Finlayson, to take the duties of S. M. O. and sanitary officer of 
Vaga Column, that all medical and sanitary questions, including distribu- 
tion of American personnel would be under the British S. M. O. Dvina 
forces — right at the time the American soldiers were needing medical atten- 
tion most. This order absolutely contradicted my order from the American 
headquarters at Archangel, making me powerless to care for the American 
soldiers. I wired the British I could not obey it, unless sent from American 
headquarters. Col. Graham, British officer in charge of Shenkursk column, 
informed me that I was disobeying an order on an active front, for which 
the maximum punishment was death., I immediately told him I was ready 
to take any punishment they might administer and sooner or later the news 
would travel back to U. S. A. and the general public would awaken tQ the 
outrageous treatment given the American soldiers by the hands of the 
British. This affair was hushed and I received no punishment, for he knew 
that there would have to be too many American lives accounted for. I 
returned to the base at Archangel and was then placed in charge of the 
surgery of the American Red Cross Hospital. 

"The Russian-English nurse story you know and also add that 75% 
of all medical stores obtained from the British on the river front, if not 
stolen by myself and men, were signed over to us) with greatest reluctance, 
red tape, and delay. It was a question of fight, quarrel, steal and even 
threaten to kill in order to obtain those supplies justly due us. 

"Would like very much to have given you a more satisfactory report — 
but right now am rushed for time — anyway, probably you can obtain most 
of the essential points. ..yours very truly, 

(Signed) JOHN C. HALL." 

This faithful and illuminating diary account of Major Hall's is typical 
of the story on the other four fronts, except that British medical officers 
dominated on the Railroad front and on the Onega front and at Kodish. 

Upon arrival of 339th Infantry in Russia on Sept. 4th, 1918, as Regi- 
mental Surgeon, established an infirmary in Olga Barracks, Archangel. 
After taking over civilian hospital by American Red Cross, I then estab- 
lished a twenty bed military hospital and an infirmary at Solombola. 

On Sept. 10th I was ordered to report to Major Rook, R. A. M. C, at 
Issakagorka, on railroad front, four miles south of Bakaritza, for instruc- 
tions regarding medical arrangements on River and Railroad fronts. 

On Sept. 11th I reported to Col. McDermott, R. A. M. C, A. D. M. S., 
North Russian Expeditionary Force, and there received instructions that I 
should leave immediately for Issakagorka. 

Accompanied by my interpreter, Private Anton Russel, and Sgt. Paul 
Clark, boarded Russian launch for Bakaritza six miles up the Dvina and 

90 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

on the opposite bank of the rivers where we transferred to train and pro- 
ceeded to Issakagorka. Upon arrival there and reporting to Major Rook, 
R. A. M. C, I was informed that I should go armed night and day for 
they were having trouble with local Bolsheviks and expected an attack 
any time. 

Issakagorka is a village located in a swamp with about 2,000 population, 
and every available room occupied. The overcrowded condition due to the 
presence of many refugees from Petrograd and Moscow and other Bolshevik 
territories. The streets deep. An odor of decaying animal matter, stagnant 
water and feces is to be had on the streets and in all the homes. At the 
house in which I was billeted, a fair example of practically all Russian 
homes, the toilet was inside. 

On Sept. 14th I was ordered to railroad front to inspect medical arrange- 
ments. Arrived at Obozerskaya and found that Lieut. Ralph Powers had 
taken over the railroad station and had almost completed arrangements 
for a Detention Hospital of forty beds. He had just evacuated thirty sick 
and wounded. The first aid station being in a log hut, one-quarter mile 
west of station, in charge of Capt. Wymand Pyle, M. C. In this there 
were ten stretchers which they had used for temporary beds until cases 
could be evacuated to the rear. 

Pits had been dug for latrines daily because the ground was so swampy 
the pit would fill with water by night. The Americans had been instructed 
to boil water before drinking, but after investigating I found it had been 
almost impossible for they had no way to boil it only by mess cup, and the 
officers found it difficult to get the men to strictly observe this order. The 
return trip from the front to Issakagorka was made on the ambulance train. 
This train consisted of five coaches, which had been used in the war against 
Germany, and all badly in need of repair. Two were nothing more than 
box cars fitted with stretchers. Two were a slight improvement over these, 
having double-decked framework for beds, which were fitted with mattresses 
and blankets. The other coach was divided into compartments. One an 
operating room, which was built on modern plans, and the other compart- 
ment was built on the style of the American Pullman, and occupied by the 
Russian doctor in charge of train, one felcher or assistant doctor (a sanitar), 
which is a Russian medical orderly, and two Russian female nurses. 

Our sick and wounded were being evacuated by this train from the front 
to Bakaritza; there kept at the Field Hospital 337th or taken by boat to 
Archangel. 

I reported to General Finlayson on Sept. 16 and was given 50,000 roubles 
to be delivered to Col. Joselyn, then in charge of river forces, and informed 
to leave for river front to make medical arrangements for the winter drive. 

At noon Sept. 18th, with Lieut. Chappel and two platoons of infantrymen, 
boarded a box car, travelled to Bakaritza, where we transferred to a small, 
dirty Russian tug. The day was spent going south on Dvina River, toward 
Beresnik. At the same time Lieut. Chappel with the platoons of infantrymen 
boarded a small boat and proceeded up the river. 

91 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

The tug on which we were had no sleeping accommodations and on 
account of the number aboard we had to sleep the first night sitting erect. 

The cockroaches ran around in such large numbers that when we ate 
it was necessary to keep a very close watch, or one would get into the food. 
The following day the infantrymen were left at Siskoe and we went on to 
Beresnik. Lieut. Chappel was killed two days after leaving us. 

Arrived at Beresnik, which is about one hundred and fifty miles from 
Archangel, after a^ thirty-eight-hour trip; reported to Major Coker, and 
then visited British Detention Hospital in charge of Capt. Watson, R. A. 
M. C. The hospital being a five-room log building with the toilet built 
adjoining the kitchen. 

In this hospital there were twenty sick and wounded Americans and 
Royal Scots. The beds were stretchers placed on the floor about one and 
one-half feet apart. The food consisted of bully beef, M and V, hard 
tack, tea and sugar, as reported by the patients stationed there. The 
pneumonia patients, Spanish influenza and wounded were all fed alike. 

It was here that I met Capt. Fortescue, R. A. M. C. A general improve- 
ment in sanitation was ordered and Capt. Watson instructed to give more 
attention to the feeding of patients. With Capt. Fortescue I visited civilian 
hospital two miles northwest of Beresnik; found Russian female doctor 
in charge, and, looking over buildings, decided to take same over for military 
hospital. Conditions of buildings fair; five in number, and would accom- 
modate one hundred patients in an emergency. The equipment of the 
hospital was eight iron beds. Vermin of all kinds, and cockroaches so thick 
that they had to be scraped from the wall and shovelled into a container. 
The latrines were built in the buildings, as is Russian custom, and were 
full to overflowing. The four patients who were there were retained and 
cared for by the civilian doctor. While at Beresnik we stayed at the 
Detention Hospital. 

The following morning, Sept. 21st, with Capt. Fortescue, boarded British 
motor launch. After travelling for about thirty versts we tranferred on to 
several tugs and barges, and on Sept. 23rd boarded hospital boat "Volog- 
johnin," and left for front after hearing that there were eight or ten 
casualties, several having been killed, but unable to ascertain name of 
village where the wounded were. 

After an hour slowly moving up stream, because of sand bars and mines, 
the tug was suddenly . stranded in mid-stream. After trying for two hours 
the captain gave up in despair. We then arranged with engineers (a squad 
on board same tug) to make a raft with two barrels. When this was about 
completed two boats approached from opposite directions. We then trans- 
ferred to the "Viatka" and proceeded to Troitza and there succeeded in 
commandeering twenty horses. 

The following day with Capt. McCardle, American Engineer, Capt. 
Fortescue and Pvt. Russel, with our horses, we crossed the river by ferry 
and then proceeded to the front. Traveling very difficult on account of 
the swampy territory and lack of information from natives who seemed 
afraid of us. The horses sank in the mud and water above their knees, 

93 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

The Bolos had told natives that the Allies would burn their homes and 
take what little food they had. 

Arrived at Zastrovia and saw American troops who informed us that 
the hospital was located in the next village. Lower Seltso about three 
miles farther. Upon arrival there we located the hospital, which was in a 
log hut, considered the best the village afforded, in charge of Capt. Van 
Home and Lieut, Katz with eight enlisted Medical detachment men. Lieut. 
Goodnight with twenty or thirty Ambulance men had just arrived at this 
place. Eight sick and wounded Americans were being treated in hospital. 
Arranged for two more rooms so capacity of hospital might be increased. 

It was vitally important that these cases be evacuated at once, but there 
was no possible way except by river, which was heavily mined. Decided 
it best to attempt evacuation by rowboat. Sgt. Clair Petit volunteered to 
conduct convoy to hospital boat at Troitza. Convoy was arranged and patients 
safely placed on board hospital boat, where they were hurriedly carried to 
Archangel. 

Returned to headquarters boat the following morning and all seemed to 
be suffering from enteritis, due to the water not being boiled. Sanitation 
in these villages almost an impossibility. Barn built in one end of home, 
with possibly a hallway between it and the kitchen. The hay loft is usually 
on a level with the kitchen floor, a hole in many houses is cut through this 
floor and used as a toilet. Or it quite often is nothing more than a two- 
inch board nailed over the sills. In the very best southern villagers' homes 
there may be a closed toilet in the hallway between the barn and kitchen. 
These are the billets used by the Allied troops on the river front in North 
Russia. The native seldom drinks raw water, but nearly always quenches 
his thirst by drinking tea. Wired Major Longley at base Sept. 22nd for 
one-half of 337th Field Hospital to be sent to Beresnik, to take over civilian 
hospital. Communication with the base was very poor. Unable to get any 
definite answer to my telegrams. 

Another trip was made from Troitza to Beresnik with hospital boat 
"Currier." Sick and wounded Royal Scots taken to Field Hospital at 
Beresnik. After arrival they were loaded on two-wheeled carts and hauled 
two miles to the hospital. 

Upon arrival at Beresnik found Capt. Martin, with one-half of Field 
Hospital 337th, had taken over civilian hospital. 

On Sept. 28th it was decided to establish a detention hospital at Shen- 
kursk, so Capt. Watson and twelve R. A. M. C. men with medical' supplies 
for a twenty-bed hospital were placed on board hospital boat "Currier." 
After posting two guards with machine guns on the boat we started on the 
trip to Shenkursk. A distance of about ninety-five versts from Beresnik on 
the Vaga River. 

All along the way the boat stopped to pick up wood and at each stop 
natives would come down to the river banks with vegetables and eggs, 
willing to trade most anything for a few cigarettes or a little tobacco. 

Arrived at Shenkursk at 5:00 p. m., Sept. 29th, and about one-half 
hour later the American Headquarters boat docked next to the hospital 

93 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

boat. When the various^ boats docked at Shenkursk all the natives of the 
town came down to the banks of the river and were very curious as well 
as friendly. The village of Shenkursk is situated on a hill and surrounded 
by forest. One company of Americans and a detachment of Russians in 
control of town. It had been taken only a few days before. 

Capt. Fortescue and I looked over civilian hospital and found it to be 
very filthy. Owing to the fact that it was so small and occupied to its 
full capacity, decided to look further. Directing our steps to the school, 
we found a very clean, desirable building, large enough to accommodate 
at least one hundred patients. 

After consulting the town commandant, were given permission to take 
over building for mihtary hospital. Capt. Watson and Capt. Daw, with 
equipment for thirty beds, were placed in charge. Stretchers were used 
as beds, until it was possible to make an improvement or procure some 
from base. Employed two Russian female nurses. Wired to Major Longley 
for one-half of Field Hospital 337th to take over this hospital, and in 
addition more medical oflficers and personnel, for Ambulance work. On 
Oct. 2nd Capt. Fortescue returned to Beresnik, which left me as A. D. A. 
p. M. S. river forces. The( same day we took quarters with Russian pro- 
fessor and established an office in same building. 

Upon investigation we found that the American troops had not been 
issued any tobacco or cigarettes for several weeks and were smoking tea 
leaves, straw or anything that would smoke. The paper used for these 
cigarettes was mostly news and toilet paper. 

On Oct. 3rd, with Russian medical officer and six American enlisted 
medical men, we, proceeded to Rovidentia, the advance front, about thirty- 
five miles from Shenkursk on Vaga River. Established a small detention 
hospital here of ten beds, leaving the Russian medical officer and six 
American enlisted medical men in charge. This village was occupied by 
two platoons of Americans and about one hundred Russians. 

In comparison to previous villages I visited in Russia, Shenkursk was 
an improvement over^ most of them. Mainly because of its location, there 
being a natural drainage, and the water was much better, containing very 
little animal and vegetable matter. 

On Oct. 7th with Pvts. Russel and Stihler again embarked on hospital 
boat "Vologjohnin," and the following morning at 8:00 a. m. proceeded to 
Beresnik with a few Russian wounded, arriving at 2:00 p. m. Made inspec- 
tion of hospital. Capt. Martin with one-half of Field Hospital working 
overtime, making beds, cleaning wards and hospital grounds, and at the 
same time caring for thirty sick and wounded patients. Marked improvement 
over previous condition. 

Left Beresnik Oct. 9th on hospital boat "Vologjohnin" with headquarters 
boat and small gunboat. Downpour of rain. Gunboat landed on sand bar 
and headquarters boat turned back, but the "Vologjohnin" kept on going 
until dark. Anchored opposite an island and at daybreak proceeded further, 
finally reaching the only boat, the "Yarrents," left on the river front. 

94 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

Before leaving Beresnik three more men were placed on board the boat. 
The personnel aboard at this time consisted of Capt. Hall in charge, two 
Russian female nurses, five American medical men and two British. 

Upon arrival at Toulgas I received word from Major Whittaker that 
sixteen wounded and six sick Royal Scots were located in the hospital 
at Seltso, but that Seltso had been under shell- fire that day and would be 
too dangerous to bring hospital boat up. That night, under the cover of 
darkness with all lights extinguished, I ordered hospital boat to Seltso. We 
arrived at Seltso but the British troops who were stationed there stated 
they knew nothing of the sick and wounded Royal Scots, but that Royal 
Scots were stationed across the river. They stated that it would be very 
dangerous to attempt to go across the river, and no one on the hospital 
boat knew the exact location of the Royal Scots. After a while a British 
sergeant stated that he would go along and direct the way, but when the 
boat pulled out the sergeant was not to be found. But we went across 
the river. The barge directly opposite was empty, so we went to the 
next barge about two versts farther up. That one had been sunk, so we 
went a few more versts to the third barge which had been used by the 
Royal Scots but which had been evacuated by them that day. I decided 
that we had gone far enough, and we returned to Toulgas. On the way 
back we picked up two wounded officers of the Polish Legion, who had just 
come from the Borak front, in a small rowboat, and stated it was at that 
place that they had the sick and wounded Scots. It would be impossible to 
reach thisi place by boat, because they had quite a time in getting through 
with a small boat. They would not believe that we had come up the river 
so far, and made the remark that we had been within a few yards of the 
Bolshevik lines. 

On Oct. 11th, after getting in touch with Major Whittaker, who stated 
that the Royal Scots would be placed on the left bank of the river opposite 
Seltso, I ordered the boat to Seltso to make another attempt to get the 
Royal Scots. Although we had the window well covered, the Bolsheviks 
must have seen the light from a candle whichj was used to light the cabin. 
They began firing, but could not get the range of the boat. We then 
returned without success. 

On the afternoon of Oct. 12th, while Seltso was under shell fire, the 
"Vologjohnin" was docked about twenty-nine yards behind the Allied barge 
with the big naval gun, and did not leave until the shell fire became heavy. 
About 8 :00 p. m., after transferring the sick troops and female nurses from 
the "Vologjohnin,'' another attempt was made, although the Russian crew 
refused to make another trip, and would not start until I insisted that the 
trip had to be made and placed several armed guards, American Medical 
men, on the boat. On this night the medical supplies were handed over to 
Capt. Griffiths, R. A. M. C, and casualties were safely placed on board. 
After returning to Toulgas the female nurses and sick troops who had been 
left there were again placed on board. The "Vologjohnin" proceeded to 
Beresnik where all casualties, totaling forty-three, were handed over to the 
337th Field Hospital. 

95 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

(The Major modestly omits to tell that he with his pistol compelled the 
crew to run the boat up to get the wounded men. General Pershing remem- 
bered Major Hall later with a citation. He repeated the deed two days 
later, that time for Americans instead of Scots.) 

Left Beresnik Oct. 14th with hospital boat for Seltso and upon arrival 
therq the town was again under shell fire. All afternoon and evening the 
hospital boat was docked within twenty-five yards of the big gun. Received 
reports that several Americans had been wounded so I ordered the Russian 
crew and medical personnel of boat, with stretchers, to upper Seltso to get 
the wounded. The seriously wounded had to be carried on stretchers through 
mud almost knee deep, while the others were placed on two-wheeled carts 
and brought to the boat, a distance of two miles. After two hours they 
succeeded in getting six wounded Americans on board, one dying, another 
almost dead, and a third in a state of shock from a shrapnel wound in thigh. 
Necessary to Hgate heavy bleeders. Bolo patrol followed along after 
bearers. 

That night the Allies retreated on both sides of the river. British 
Commanding Officer taken aboard hospital boat. Remained over night 
anchored in mid-stream. Nothing could have prevented the Bolo boats 
from coming down stream and either sink our boat or take us prisoners, 
for our guns were left in the retreat. Several wounded on opposite bank 
but it was necessary for them to be evacuated overland for several versts 
under most extreme difficulties on two-wheeled carts through mud in many 
places to the horses' bellies. By moving up and down stream next day 
the wounded were found. It was necessary to have the boat personnel 
serve what extra tea and hard tack they had to the weary, mud-spattered 
Royal Scots. 

Americans retreated to Toulgas on right bank of river where Lieut. 
Katz, M. C, with medical detachment men established a detention hospital. 

On Oct. 16th thirty-five sick and wounded patients were transferred to 
Field Hospital 337th, Beresnik. Capt. Kinyon, M. C,, Lieut. Danziger, M. 

C. Lieut. Simmons, D. C, and one-half of Field Hospital 337th arrived 
at Beresnik from base, and placed on board hospital boat "Currier." Ar- 
ranged to take personnel and supplies to Shenkursk and establish hospital 
there, at this time occupied by Capt. Watson and fourteen R. A. M. C. men. 
Pvt. Stihler transferred to British hospital barge "Michigan" to work in 
office of D. A. D. M. S. In addition to being used for the office of the 

D. A. D. M. S., the barge was also used for a convalescent hospital of 
forty beds, in charge of Capt, Walls, R. A. M. C. 

Left Beresnik Oct. 18th with complete equipment and personnel for 
hospital of one hundred beds, also medical and Red Cross supplies. Many 
refugees and several prisoners on board. Placed guards from medical 
personnel over stores and prisoners. One prisoner tried to escape through 
window of boat but was caught before he could get away. 

He was reported later as Bolshevik spy, another as a Lett officer. Travel 
by night is against the rules of Russian river boat crew. Had to use force 
to get them to continue moving. Arrived at Shenkursk Oct. 19th and 

93 




"G" Men Near Pinega 




Lewis Gun Protects Mess Hall, Pinega 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

delivered prisoners. Relieved Capt. Watson, R, A. M. C, and personnel 
from duty at detention hospital, and started Field Hospital 337. Returned 
to Beresnik and found that hospital now working about full capacity. After 
placing all seriously sick and wounded on board hospital ship "Currier" 
we proceeded to Archangel, and arrived there Oct. 22nd. Boat greatly in 
need of repairs. 

Arranged with Major Longley to get Red Cross and medical supplies, 
and had them placed aboard. Among the Red Cross supplies were ten 
bags of sugar to be divided between the hospitals and used for the purpose 
of bartering natives for vegetables, eggs and chickens. 

Oct. 25th, 1918, weather growing colder. Departed for Beresnik on 
hospital boat. The Russian crew did not want to travel at night but I 
insisted and we kept on going. Awakened by cooties. After lighting my 
candle found quite a number. 

Oct. 26th, 1918, stopped for a short time to pick up wood. Awakened 
by rumbling and cracking noise against boat and upon looking out saw we 
were running through floating ice. This condition persisted for thirty-five 
versts until we reached Beresnik. Crew stopped boat and refused to go 
any farther. Necessary to use some moral "suasion." When we arrived at 
Beresnik found that one paddle was out of order and bow of boat dented 
in many places and almost punctured in one place. 

Reported to General Finlayson, who ordered me to proceed with boat 
after unloading medical and Red Cross supplies, to Pianda, which is about 
twelve versts back up river on a tributary of the Dvina River, and report 
on the situation at Charastrovia for billets or building for convalescent 
hospital. Left Bereznik for Pianda Oct. 28th and had to run boat through 
tv/o miles of almost solid ice, four inches thick. At the mouth of this 
tributary had to make three attempts before successfully penetrating ice 
enough to get into channel of stream. 

The following day after leaving a few medical supplies with Canadian 
Artillery Headquarters and arranging transportation for myself and per- 
sonnel, with a few cooking utensils and blankets, we started for Beresnik. 
Stopped at Charastrovia and looked over several buildings but nothing 
available worth while. Natives very unfriendly and suspicious. Arrived 
at Beresnik, reported to the General and spent the night at Field Hospital 337. 

Oct. 30th left on tug "Archangel" for Kurgomin with dentist. Received 
report that several casualties were there to be evacuated. Reached Pless 
but found the river full of ice again. Captain of boat stated that he could 
not get to Kurgomin, but within about three miles of the place. Docked 
boat and walked through mud and water to my knees to Kurgomin. Found 
there had been a small detention hospital of fifteen beds established by Capt. 
Fortescue in charge of Capt. Watson, R. A. M. C. Good building at Pless 
for a hospital of fifty or seventy-five beds, which was necessary to be taken 
over and used as advance base evacuating hospital after Dvina froze. Sent 
dentist with equipment over to opposite bank to take care of men's teeth 
of Co. "B", then holding the front on the left bank. Getting his field 
equipment together and using cabin as his office, he was able to care for 

97 



' THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

twenty men. All to be evacuated were walking cases. Very dark and mud 
twelve inches deep. Officially reported that Bolos were coming around 
the rear that night. We arrived tired, but safely, where the boat was 
waiting and returned eight miles through ice. Waited until morning before 
going farther and at daybreak started for Chamova. Stopped there while 
dentist cared for several Co. "D" men. Finally reached Beresnik after being 
stuck on sand bars many times, as river was very shallow at that time 
of the year and channel variable. Handed patients over and spent night 
at Field Hospital 337. 

Following day found it necessary to be deloused. We had nothing but 
Serbian barrels for clothing disinfectors at that time. Reported that a 
thresh delouser had been started for Beresnik. Sanitation greatly improved. 

After a few days' rest and arranging with engineers to make ambulance 
sled, started again on tug "Archangel" for Dvina front. On the way only 
one hour when boat ran aground, and after two hours' work (pushing with 
poles by all on board) we succeeded getting into channel and anchored for 
the night. 

Started again at daybreak and stopped at Chamova. "D" Company 
339th Infantry at that place with one medical enlisted man, who had taken 
three years in medicine. The only man with medical knowledge available. 
He had established an aid station with two stretchers for beds. Place 
comfortable and clean. General sanitation and billeting the same as in all 
other Russian villages. 

Reached Pless and left some medical stores with Capt. Watson, then 
proceeded to Toulgas with medical and Red Cross supplies. On way to 
headquarters a few stray shots were fired by snipers, but no harm done. 

Left medical and Red Cross supplies at Lower Toulgas and took aboard 
eight sick and wounded troops. Started for Beresnik. Stopped at Chamova 
to pick up one sick and one wounded American. 

Arrived at Beresnik Nov. 8th. With medical and Red Cross supplies 
left for Shenkursk on hospital ship "Currier." Natives very friendly along 
the Vaga River and anxious to bartei;. Arrived at Shenkursk Nov. 11th. 

Over one hundred patients irt hospital. Officers had taken over an 
additional building for contagious ward which was full of "flu" and pneumonia 
cases. With every caution against the spread of the disease, the epidemic 
was growing. Russian soldier seems to have no resistance, probably due 
to the lack of proper kind of food for the last four years. Seven at hospital 
morgue at one time, before we could get coffins made. People were dying 
by hundreds in the neighboring villages. Found it necessary to try and 
organize medical assistance in order to combat the epidemic. Funerals 
of three or four passed wailing through the streets every few hours. 

The Russian funeral at Shenkursk was as follows : Corpse is carried 
out in the open on the lid of the coffin, face exposed, and a yellow robe 
(used for every funeral) is thrown over the body. The body is then 
carried to the church where there is little or no ventilatioti except when 
the doors are opened. Here during the chants every member of the funeral 
party, at diflferent times during the service, proceeds to kiss the same spot 

98 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

on an image, held by the priest. It is their belief that during a religious 
service it is impossible to contract disease. 

Visited civilian hospitals Nov. 16th, which were in a most horrible state. 
No ventilation and practically all with Spanish influenza and, in addition, 
many with gangrenous wounds. Tried to enlighten the Russian doctor 
in charge with the fact that fresh air would be beneficial to his cases. But 
he seemed to think I was entirely out of my sphere and ignored what I said. 
I reported the situation to British headquarters and thereafter he reluctantly 
did as I suggested. Then arranged with headquarters to send Russian 
medical officer and felchers with American medical officers out to villages 
where assistance was needed most, instructing each to impress on the natives 
the necessity of fresh air and proper hygiene. They found there was such 
a shortage of the proper kind of food that the people had no resistance 
against disease, and were dying by the hundreds. In the meantime estab- 
lished annex to civilian hospital in a school building. Had wooden beds 
made and placed felchers in charge. 

Tried to segregate cases in Shenkursk and immediate vicinity as much 
as possible. After getting everything in working order I found a shortage 
of doctors. So I proceeded to villages not yet reached by others. Report 
from Ust Padenga that Lieut. Cuff and fourteen enlisted men killed or 
missing oil patrol Nov. 29th ; some of the bodies recovered. 

Weather growing colder. Twenty degrees below zero, with snow four 
inches deep. Evacuated sick and wounded from Ust Padenga eighteen 
versts beyond Shenkursk in sleds filled with hay and blankets necessary 
for warmth. Shakleton shoes had not arrived at that time. Most cases 
coming back in good condition, but pneumonia cases would not stand the 
exposure. Condition at Ust Padenga very uncertain. Lieut. Powers and 
Lieut. Taufanoff in charge of ten-bed detention hospital. Advised them 
to keep their hospital clear for an emergency. 

Action reported oil Dvina and hospital captured; later retaken. Slight 
action every day or so at Ust Padenga. Lieut. Powers caring for all 
civilians in and around that place. Visited one home where I found the 
father sick and in adjoining room the corpse of his wife and two children. 
In another village I found twenty-four sick in four families ; eight of which 
were pneumonia cases. In one peasant home, six in family, all sick with 
a child of eight years running a fever, but trying to care for others. All 
sleeping in the same room; three on the floor and balance together in a 
loft made by laying boards between the sills. They informed me that no 
food had been' cooked for them for three days. The child eight years old 
was then trying to make some tea. This same room was used as a dining 
room and kitchen. It had double windows, all sealed air-tight. 

Russian troops very difficult to discipline along sanitary or hygienic 
lines and have no idea of cleanliness. A guard on the latrine was an 
absolute necessity. I adopted this plan in hospital, but impossible to get 
their officers to follow this rule at their barracks latrines. Reported it to 
British headquarters but they stated that they could not do anything. 

99 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

Dec. 8th, 1918. Left by sled for Ust Padcnga to inspect hospital. Arrived 
at 11 :00 a. m. Very cold day. General conditions very good considering 
circumstances. Using pits out in open for latrines. Men living in double- 
decker beds, and as comfortable as possible in the available billets. Hospital 
consisted of two rooms in a log hut, but light, dry and comfortable. Beds 
improvised with stretchers laid across wooden horses. Had three casualties 
which they were evacuating that day. 

Started for Shenkursk at 3 :00 p. m. Began snowing and my driver 
proceeded in circles leaving the horse go as he chose. A Russian custom 
when they lose their bearings. I got somewhat anxious and had been try- 
ing to inquire with the few Russian terms I had been forced to learn. 
Driver stated that he did not know the way, and we ran into snow drifts, into 
gullies, over bluffs, through bushes, and after floundering around in the 
snow for six hours I heard the bugle from Shenkursk which was just across 
the river. I then started the direction which I thought was up the river and 
by good luck, ran into the road that led across the Vaga to Shenkursk. 

December 12th, 1918. Hospital inspected by Major Fitzpatrick of Amer- 
ican Red Cross. 

December 14th, 1918. Left Shenkursk for Shegovari where Lieut. Good- 
night and 337th Ambulance men were running a detention hospital of eight 
beds and infirmary for American platoon, stationed at that place which is 
forty versts down Vaga river from Shenkursk toward Beresnik, where we 
arrived at 6 :00 p. m. Looked over his hospital and continued on to Kitsa. 
Remained over night and left at daylight December 15th, going across Vaga 
through woods to Chamova, arriving at noon. Very cold day. 

Here given a team of horses and proceeded ta Toulgas, the farthest 
Dvina front. Found small hospital with several sick at Lower Toulgas in 
charge of British medical officer. Stayed over night at headquarters two 
versts further up the river. The following day some artillery firing. Pro- 
ceeded to front line dressing station in charge of Lieut. Christie and ten 
337th Ambulance men. One from advance headquarters on left bank, British 
holding front. One company of Americans and one of Scots on right bank. 
Stopped at Shushuga on return, eight versts from Toulgas. Across the 
river from this place is Pless where an evacuation hospital was conducted 
by Capt. Watson, R. A. M» C, with fourteen British and one American Am- 
bulance man, used as a cook and interpreter. Stretchers used for beds. 
Casualties held here for two or three days and evacuated by sled to Beresnik 
about fifty versts to the rear. At Shushuga there were two Ambulance 
men conducting a first aid station. Village held by one platoon of Amer- 
icans. 

Returned to Beresnik making a change of horses at Chamova and Ust 
Vaga. The latter place held by twenty-eight American engineers and about 
one hundred Russians. First aid given by a Russian felcher. 

Inspected wards, kitchen, food, etc. Found there was no complaint as 
to treatment received. December 16th, 1918. With rations for five days 
left for Archangel by sleigh, making a change of horses about every twenty 
versts. Arrived at Archangel at 2 :00 p. m., December 23, 1918. 

100 



XII 

Armistice Day With Americans in North Russia 

"B" And "D" Busy With Attacking Bolos — "L" Vigilantly Holding 
Front Near Kodish — Quiet On Other Fronts — Engineers Building 
Blockhouses With Wiixing Assistance Of Doughboys — How Was 
Our Little War Affected — "We're Here Because We're Here" — No 
Share In Victory Shouting — "F" On Lines Of Communication. 

Armistice Day, November 11th, 1918, with American soldiers in North 
Russia, was a day of stern activity for continued war. A great thrill of pride 
possessed the entire force because the Yanks on the Western Front had been 
in at the death of Hun militarism. The wonderful drives of our armies 
under Pershing which crushed in the Hindenberg Lines, one after another, 
had been briefly wirelessed and cabled up to Russia. We got the joyful news 
in Archangel on the very day the fighting ceased on the Western Front. 

But the "B" and "D" Company men were too busy on Armistice Day 
to listen to rumors of world peace. The Reds had staged that awful four- 
day battle, told next in this story, and the American medical and hospital 
men were sadly busy with thirty bleeding and dead comrades who had fallen 
in defending Toulgas. "C" was far out at Ust Padenga earnestly building 
blockhouses. "A" was at Shenkursk with Colonel Corbley, resting after two 
months stiff fighting and with American Engineers of the 310th building 
blockhouses. For they correctly suspected that the Reds would not quit 
just because of the collapse of the Germans. 

"L" Company and Ballard's Machine Gun platoon were hourly prepared 
to fight for their position at the Emtsa River against the Red force flushed 
with the victorious recapture of Kodish. 310th Engineers were skillfully and 
heartily at work on the blockhouses and gun emplacements and log shelters 
for this Kodish force, doomed to a desperate winter, armistice or no armis- 
tice. Old "K" Company, breathless yet from its terrific struggle to hold 
Kodish, was back at base headquarters at Seletskoe waiting patiently for "E" 
Company to relieve them. 

Captain Heil's company had left Archangel by railroad and was some- 
where on the cold forest trail between Obozerskaya and Seletskoe. 

"F'' Company, as we have seen, was now on the precious lines of com- 
munication, now more subject to attack because of the numerous winter 
trails across the hitherto broad, impassable expanses of forest and swamp, 
which were now beginning to freeze up. Far out on their left flank and to 
their rear was the little force of "G" Company who were holding Pinega 
and a long sector of road which was daily becoming more difficult to safe- 
guard. And hundreds of miles across this state of Archangel in the Onega 
Valley our "H" Company comrades felt the responsibility of wiring in them- 
selves for a last ditch stand against the Reds who might try to drive them 
back and flank their American and Allied comrades on the railroad. 

101 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

On the railroad the 310th Engineers were busy as beavers building, with 
the assistance of the infantrymen, blockhouses and barracks and gun emplace- 
ments and so forth. For, while the advanced positions on the railroad 
were of no value in themselves, it was necessary to hold them for the sake 
of the other columns. Obozerskaya was to be the depot and sleigh transpor- 
tation point of most consequence next to Seletskoe, which itself in winter 
was greatly dependent on Obozerskaya. 

"I" and "M" Companies were festing from the hard fall offensive move- 
ment, the former unit at Obozerskaya, the latter just setting foot for the 
first time in Archangel for a ten day rest, the company having gone directly 
from troopship to troop train and having been "shock troops" in every one 
of the successive drives at the Red army positions. 

In Archangel "Hq." Company units were assisting Machine Gun units in 
guarding important public works and marching in strength occasionally on 
the streets to glare down the scowling sailors and other Red sympathizers 
who, it was rumored persistently, were plotting a riot and overthrow of the 
Tchaikowsky government and throat-cutting for the Allied Embassies and 
military missions. 

Oh, Armistice Day in Archangel made peace in our strange war no nearer. 
It was dark foreboding of the winter campaign that filled the thoughts of 
the doughboy on duty or lying in the hospital in Archangel that day. Out 
on the various fronts the American soldiers grimly understood that they 
must hold on where they were for the sake of their comrades on other dis- 
tant but nevertheless cotangent fronts on the circular line that guard Arch- 
angel. In Archangel the bitter realization was at last accepted that no more 
American troops were to come to our assistance. 

Of course every place where two American soldiers or officers exchanged 
words on Armistice Day, or the immediate days following, the chief topic of 
conversation was the possible eflfect of the armistice upon our little war. 
Vainly the scant telegraphic news was studied for any reference to the 
Russian situation in the Archangel area. Was our unofficial war on Russia's 
Red government to go on? How could armistice terms be extended to it 
without a tacit recognition of the Lenine-Trotsky government? 

As one of the boys who was upon the Dvina front writes: "We would 
have given anything we owned and mortgaged our every expectation to have 
been one of that great delirious, riotous mob that surged over Paris on 
Armistice Day; and we thought we had something of a title to have been 
there for we claimed the army of Pershing for our own, even though we 
had been sent to the Arctic Circle; and now that the whole show was over 
we wanted to have our share in the shouting." 

But the days, deadly and monotonous, followed one another with ever 
gloomy regularity, and there was no promise of relief, no word, no news of 
any kind, except the stories of troops returning home from France. Doubt- 
less in the general hilarity over peace, we were forgotten. After all, who 
had time in these world stirring days to think of an insignificant regiment 
performing in a fantastic Arctic side show. 

102 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

Truth to tell, the Red propagandists on Trotsky's Northern Army staff 
quickly seized the opportunity to tell the Allied troops in North Russia that 
the war was over and asked us what we were fighting for. They did it 
cleverly, as will be told elsewhere. Yet the doughboy only swore softly and 
shined his rifle barrel. He could not get information straight from home. 
He was sore. But why fret? His best answer was the philosophic "We're 
here because we're here" and he went on building blockhouses and preparing 
to do his best to save his life in the inevitable winter campaign which began 
(we may say) about the time of the great world war Armistice Day, which 
in North Russia did not mean cease firing. 

Before passing to the story of the dark winter's fighting we must notice 
one remaining unit of the American forces, hitherto only mentioned. It 
is the unit that after doing tedious guard duty in Archangel and its suburbs 
for a couple of months, all the while listening impatiently to stories of 
adventure and hardship and heroism filtering in from the fronts and the 
highly imaginative stories of impendng enemy smashes and atrocities rumor- 
ing in from those same fronts and gaining color and tragic proportions in 
the mouth-to-mouth transit, that unit "F" Company, the prize drill company 
of Camp Custer iii its young life, now on October 30th found itself on a 
slow-going barge enroute to Yemetskoe, one hundred and twenty-five versts, 
as the side wheeler wheezed up the meandering old Dvina River. 

There in the last days of the fall season this company of Americans took 
over the duty of patrolling constantly the line of communications and all 
trails leading into it so that no wandering force of Red Guards should 
capture any of the numerous supply trains bound south with food, powder 
and comforts — such as they were — for the Americans and Allied forces far 
south on the Dvina and Vaga fronts. 

It was highly important work admirably done by this outfit commanded 
by Captain Ralph Ramsay. Any slackening of alertness might have resulted 
disastrously to their regimental comrades away south, and while this outfit 
was the last of the 339th to go into active field service it may be said in 
passing that in the spring it was the lajst unit to come away from the 
fighting front in June, and came with a gallant record, story of which will 
appear later. Winter blizzards found the outfit broken into trusty detach- 
ments scattered all the way from Kholmogori, ninety versts north of Yemet- 
skoe, to Morjegorskaya, fifty-five versts south of company headquarters in 
Yemetskoe. And it was common occurrence for a sergeant of "F" Company 
with a "handful of doughboys'' to escort a mob of Bolshevik prisoners of 
war to distant Archangel. 



103 



XIII 

Winter Defense of Toulgas 

General Ironside Makes Exedition Aim Defensive — Bolsheviki Help Give 
It Character — Toulgas — Surprise Attack Nov. 11th By Reds — Canad- 
ian Artillery Escapes Capture — We Win Back Our Positions — 
"Lady Olga" Saves Wounded Men — Heroic Wallace — Cudahy And 
Derham Carry Upper Toulgas By Assault — Foukes — A Jubilant Bon- 
fire — Many Prisoners — Ivan Puzzled By Our War — Bolo Attack In 
January Fails — Dresing Nearly Takes Prisoner— Winter Patrolling 
— Corporal Prince's Patrol Ambushed — ^We Hold Toulgas. 

General Ironside had now taken over command of the expedition and 
changed its character more to accord with the stated purpose of it. We were 
on the defensive. The Bolshevik whose frantic rear-guard actions during 
the fall campaign had often been given up, even when he was really having 
the best of it, merely because he always interpreted the persistence of Amer- 
ican attack or stubbornness of defense to mean superior force. He had 
learned that the North Russian Expeditionary Force was really a pitifully 
small force, and that there was so much fussing at home in England and 
France and America about the justice and the methods of the expedition, 
that no large reinforcements need be expected. So the Bolsheviks on Arm- 
istice Day, November 11, began their counter offensive movement which 
was to merge with their heavy winter campaign. So the battle of November 
11th is included in the narrative of the winter defense of Toulgas. 

Toulgas was the duplicate of thousands of similar villages throughout this 
province. It consisted of a group of low, dirty log houses huddled together 
on a hill, sloping down to a broad plain, where was located another group 
of houses, known as Upper Toulgas. A small stream flowed between the 
two villages and nearly a mile to the rear was another group of buildings 
which was used for a hospital and where first aid was given to the wounded 
before evacuating them to Bereznik, forty or fifty miles down the river. 

The forces engaged in the defense of this position consisted of several 
batteries of Canadian artillery, posted midway between the hospital and the 
main village. In addition to this "B" Company, American troops, and an- 
other company of Royal Scots were scattered in and about these positions. 
From the upper village back to the hospital stretched a good three miles, 
which of course meant that the troops in this position, numbering not more 
than five hundred were considerably scattered and separated. This detailed 
description of our position here is set forth so specifically in order that the 
reader may appreciate the attack which occurred during the early part of 
November. 

On the morning of November 11th, while some of the men were still 
engaged in eating their breakfasts and while the positions were only about 
half manned, suddenly from the forests surrounding the upper village, the 

105 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

enemy emerged in attack formation. Lieut. Dennis engaged them for a short 
time and withdrew to our main line of defense. All hands were immediately 
mustered into position to repel this advancing wave of infantry. In the 
meantime the Bolo attacked with about five hundred men from our rear, 
having made a three day march through what had been reported as impassable 
swamp. He occupied our rearmost village, which was undefended, and at- 
tacked our hospital. This forward attack was merely a ruse to divert the 
attention of our troops in that direction, while the enemy directed his main 
assault at our rear and undefended positions for the purpose of gaining our 
artillery. Hundreds of the enemy appeared as if by magic from the forests, 
swarmed in upon the hospital village and immediately took possession. Im- 
mediately the hospital village was in their hands, the Bolo then commenced 
a desperate advance upon our guns. 

At the moment that this advance began, there were some sixty Canadian 
artillery men and one Company "B" sergeant with seven men and a Lewis 
gun. Due to the heroism and coolness of this handful of men, who at once 
opened fire with their Lewis guns, forcing the advancing infantry to pause 
momentarily. This brief halt gave the Canadians a chance to reverse their 
gun positions, swing them around and open up with muzzle bursts upon the 
first wave of the assault, scarcely fifty yards( away. It was but a moment 
until the hurricane of shrapnel was bursting among solid masses of advancing 
infantry, and under such murderous lire, the best disciplined troops and the 
most foolhardly could not long withstand. Certain it was that the advancing 
Bolo could not continue his advance. The Bolos were on our front, our 
right flank and our rear, we were entirely cut oflf from communication, and 
there were no reinforcements available. About 4 :00 p. m. we launched a 
small counter attack under Lt. Dennis, which rolled up a line of snipers 
which had given us considerable annoyance. We then shelled the rear vil- 
lages occupied by the Bolos, and they decamped. Meanwhile the Royal 
Scots, who had been formed for the counter attack, went forward also under 
the cover of the artillery, and the Bolo, or at least those few remaining, 
were driven back into the forests. 

The enemy losses during this attack were enormous. His estimated dead 
and wounded were approximately four hundred, but it will never be known 
as to how many of them later died in the surrounding forests from wounds 
and exposure. This engagement was not disastrous from the loss of men, 
but was even more disastrous from the fact that some of the leading Bol- 
shevik leaders on this front were killed during this engagement. One of the 
leading commanders was an extremely powerful giant of a man, named 
Melochofski, who first led his troops into the village hospital in the rear 
of the gun positions. He strode into the hospital, wearing a huge black 
fur hat, which accentuated his extraordinary height, and singled out all the 
wounded American and English troops for immediate execution, and this 
would undoubtedly have been their fate, had it not been for the interference 
of a most remarkable woman, who was christened by the soldiers "Lady 
Olga." 

106 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

This woman, a striking and intelligent appearing person, had formerly 
been a member of the famous Battalion of Death, and afterwards informed 
one of our interpreters that she had joined the Soviets out of pure love 
of adventure, wholly indifferent to the cause for which she exposed her life. 
She had fallen in love with Melochofski and had accompanied him with his 
troops through the trackless woods, sharing the lot of the common soldiers 
and enduring hardships that would have shaken the most vigorous man. 
With all her hardihood, however, there was still a touch of the eternal 
feminine, and when Melochofski issued orders for the slaughter of the in- 
valided soldiers, she rushed forward and in no uncertain tones demanded 
that the order be countermanded and threatened to shoot the first Bolo who 
entered the hospital. She herself remained in the hospital while Melochof- 
ski with the balance of his troops went forward with the attack and where 
he himself was so mortally wounded that he lived only a few minutes after 
reaching her side. She eventually was sent to the hospital at the base and 
nursed there. Capt. Boyd states that he saw a letter which she wrote, un- 
solicited, to her former comrades, telling them that they should not believe 
the lies which their commissars told them, and that the Allies were fighting 
for the good of Russia. 

At daybreak the following day, five gun boats appeared around the bend 
of the river, just out of range of our three inch artillery, and all day long 
their ten long ranged guns pounded away at our positions, crashing great 
explosives upon our blockhouse, which guarded the bridge connecting the 
upper and middle village, while in the forests surrounding this position the 
Bolo infantry were lying in wait awaiting for a direct hit upon this strong 
point in order that they could rush the bridge and overwhelm us. Time after 
time exploding shells threw huge mounds of earth and debris into the loop 
holes of this blockhouse and all but demolished it. 

Here Sergeant Wallace performed a particularly brave act. The block- 
house of which he was in command was Hear a large straw pile. A shell 
hit near the straw and threw it in front of the loop holes. Wallace went 
out under machine gun fire from close range, about seventy-five yards, and 
under heavy shelling, and removed the straw. The same thing happened a 
little later, and this time he was severely wounded. He was awarded the 
Distinguished Conduct Medal by the British. Private Bell was in this block- 
house when it was hit and all the occupants killed or badly wounded. Bell 
was badly gashed in the face, but stuck with his Lewis gun until dark when 
he could be relieved, being the only one in the shattered blockhouse which 
held the bridge across the small stream separating us from the Bolos, 

For three days the gun boats pounded away and all night long there was 
the rattle and crack of the machine guns. No one slept. The little gar- 
rison was fast becoming exhausted. Men were hollow-eyed from weariness 
and so utterly tired that they were indifferent to the shrieking shells and all 
else. At this point of the siege, it was decided that our only salvation was 
a counter attack. In the forests near the upper village were a number of 
log huts, which the natives had used ' for charcoal kilns, but which had been 
converted by the enemy into observation posts and storehouses for machine 

107 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

guns and ammunition. His troops were lying in and about the woods sur- 
rounding these buildings. We decided to surprise this detachment in the 
woods, capture it if possible and make a great demonstration of an attack 
so as to give the enemy in the upper village the impression that we were 
receiving reinforcements and still fresh and ready for fighting. This man- 
euver succeeded far beyond our wildest expectations. 

Company "B," under command of Lt. John Cudahy, and one platoon of 
Company "D" under Lt. Derham, made the counter attack on the Bolo 
trenches. Just before dawn that morning the Americans filed through the 
forests and crept upon the enemy's observation posts before they were aware 
of any movement on our part. We then proceeded without any warning upon 
their main position. Taken as they were, completely by surprise, it was but 
a moment before they were in full rout» running panic-stricken in all direc- 
tions, thinking that a regiment or division had followed upon them. We 
immediately set fire to these huts containing their ammunition, cartridges, 
etc., and the subsequent explosion that followed probably gave the enemy the 
impression that a terrific attack was pending. As we emerged from the 
woods and commenced the attack upon upper Toulgas we were fully expect- 
ing stiff resistance, for we knew that many of these houses concealed enemy 
guns. Our plans had succeeded so well, however, that no supporting fire 
from the upper village came and the snipers in the forward part of the vil- 
lage seeing themselves abandoned, threw their guns and came rushing for- 
ward shouting "tovarish, tovarish," meaning the same as the German "kam- 
erad." As a matter of fact, in this motley crew of prisoners were a num- 
ber of Germans and Austrians, who could scarcely speak a word of German 
and who were probably more than thankful to be taken prisoners and thus 
be relieved from active warfare. 

During this maneuver one of their bravest and ablest commanders, by 
the name of Foukes, was killed, which was an irreparable loss to the enemy. 
Foukes was without question one of the most competent and aggressive of 
the Bolo leaders. He was a very powerful man physically and had long 
years of service as a private in the old Russian Army, and was without ques- 
tion a most able leader of men. During this fouf days' attack and counter 
attack he had led his men by a circuitous route through the forestSf wading 
in swamps waist deep, carrying machine guns and rations. The nights were 
of course miserably cold and considerable snow had falleni but Foukes 
would risk no fire of any kind for fear of discovery. It was not due to 
any lack of ability or strategy on his part that this well planed attack failed 
of accomplishment. On his body we found a dramatic message, written on 
the second day of the battle after the assault on the guns had failed. He 
was with the rear forces at that time and dispatched or had intended to dis- 
patch the following to the command in charge of the forward forces: 

"We are in the two lowest villages — one steamer coming up river — 
perhaps reinforcements. Attack more vigorously — Melochofski and 
Murafski are killed. If you do not attack, I cannot hold on and retreat 
is impossible. (Signed) FOUKES." 

108 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

Out of our force of about six hundred Scots and Americans we had about 
a hundred casualties, the Scots suffering worse than we. Our casualties were 
mostly sustained in the blockhouses, from the shelling. It was here that we 
lost Corporal Sabada and Sergeant Marriott, both of whom were fine soldiers 
and their loss was very keenly felt. Sabada's dying words were instructions 
to his squad to hold their position in the rear of their blockhouse which 
had been destroyed. , 

It was reported that Trotsky, the idol of the Red crowd, was present at 
the battle of Toulgas, but if he was there, he had little influence in checking 
the riotous retreat of his followers when they thought themselves flanked 
from the woods. They fied in wild disorder from the upper village of Toul- 
gas and for days thereafter in villages far to our rear, various members of 
this force straggled in, half crazed by starvation and exposure and more than 
willing to abandon the Soviet cause. For weeks the enemy left the Amer- 
icans severely alone. Toulgas was held. 

But it was decided to burn Upper Toulgas, which was a constant menace 
to our security, as we had no men to occupy it with sufficient numbers to 
make a defense and the small outposts there were tempting morsels for 
the enemy to devour. Many were reluctant to stay there, and it was 
nervous work on the black nights when the wind, dismal and weird, moaned 
through the encompassing forest, every shadow a crouching Bolshevik. 
Often the order came through to the main village to "stand to," because 
some fidgety sentinel in Upper Toulgas had seen battalions, conjured by the 
black night. So it was determined to burn the upper village and a guard was 
thrown around it, for we feared word would be passed and the Bolos would 
try to prevent us from accomplishing our purpose. The inhabitants |were 
given three hours to vacate. It was a pitiful sight to see them turned out 
of the dwellings where most of them had spent their whole simple, not un- 
happy lives, their meagre possessions scattered awry upon the ground. 

The first snow floated down from a dark foreboding sky, dread announcer 
of a cruel Arctic winter. Soon the houses were roaring flames. The women 
sat upon hand-fashioned crates wherein were all their most prized house- 
hold goods, and abandoned themselves to a paroxysm of weeping despair, 
while the children shrieked stridently, victim of all the realistic horrors that 
only childhood can conjure. Most of the men looked on in silence, uncom- 
prehending resignation on their faces, mute, pathetic figures. Poor moujiks! 
They didn't understand, but they took all uncomplainingly. Nitchevoo, fate 
had decreed that they should suffer this burden, and so they accepted it 
without question. 

But when we thought of the brave chaps whose lives had been taken 
from those flaming homes, for our casualties had been very heavy, nearly 
one hundred men killed and wounded, we stifled our compassion and looked 
on the blazing scene as a jubilant bonfire. All night long the burning village 
was red against the black sky, and in the morning where had stood Upper 
Toulgas was now a smoking, dirty smudge upon the plain. 

We took many prisoners in this second fight of Toulgas. It was a trick 
of the Bolos to sham death until a searching party, bent on examining the 

109 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

bodies for information, would approach them, when suddenly they would 
spring to life and deliver themselves up. These said that only by this method 
could they escape the tyranny of the Bolsheviki. They declared that never 
had they any sympathy with the Soviet cause. They didn't understand it. 
They had been forced into the Red Army at the point of a gun, and were 
kept in it by the same persuasive argument. Others said they had joined 
the Bolshevik military forces to escape starvation. 

There was only one of the thirty prisoners who admitted being an ardent 
follower of the cause, and a believer in the Soviet articles of political 
doctrine, and this was an admission that took a great deal of courage, for 
it was instilled universally in the Bolos that we showed no mercy, and if 
they fell into the hands of the cruel Angliskis and Americanskis there was 
nothing but a hideous death for them. 

Of course our High Command had tried to feed our troops the same 
kind of propaganda. Lenine, himself, said that of every one hundred Bol- 
sheviks fifty were knaves, forty were fools, and probably one in the hundred 
a sincere believer. Once a Bolshevik commander who gave himself up to 
us said that the great majority of officers in the Soviet forces had been con- 
scripted from the Imperial Army and were kept in order by threats to 
massacre their families if they showed the slightest tendency towards deser- 
tion. The same officer told me the Bolshevik party was hopelessly in the 
minority, that its adherents numbered only about three and a half in every 
hundred Russians, that it had gained ascendency and held power only be- 
cause Lenine and Trotsky inaugurated their revolution by seizing every 
machine gun in Russia and steadfastly holding on to them. He said that 
every respectable person looked upon the Bolsheviks as a gang of cutthroats 
and ruffians, but all were bullied into passive submission. 

We heard him wonderingly. We tried to fancy America ever being 
brow-beaten and cowed by an insignificant minority, her commercial life 
prostrated, her industries ravished, and we gave the speculation up as an 
unworthy reflection upon our country. But this was Russia, Russia who 
inspired the world by her courage and fortitude in the great war, and while 
it was at its most critical stage, fresh with the memories of millions slain 
o'rt Gallician fields, concluded the shameful treaty of Brest Litovsk, betray- 
ing everything for which those millions had died. Russia, following the 
visionary Kerensky from disorder to chaos, and eventually wallowing in 
the mire of Bolshevism. Yes, one can expect anything in Russia. 

They were a hardboiled looking lot, those Bolo prisoners. They wore 
no regulation uniform, but were clad in much the same attire as an ordinary 
moujik — knee leather boots and high hats of gray and black curled fur. 
No one could distinguish them from a distance, and every peasant could 
be Bolshevik. Who knew? In fact, we had reason to believe that many of 
them were Bolshevik in sympathy. The Bolos had an uncanny knowledge 
of our strength and the state of our defenses, and although no one except 
soldiers were allowed beyond the village we knew that despite the closest 
vigilance there was working unceasingly a system of enemy espionage with 
which we could never hope to cope. 

110 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

Some of the prisoners were mere boys seventeen and eighteen years old. 
Others men of advanced years. Nearly all of them were hopelessly ignorant, 
likely material for a fiery tongued orator and plausible propagandist. They 
thought the Americans were supporting the British in an invasion of Russia 
to suppress all democratic government, and to return a Romanoff to the 
throne. 

That was the story that was given out to the moujiks, and, of course, they 
firmly believed it, and after all why should they not, judging by appearances? 
We quote here from an American officer who fought at Toulgas: 

"If we had not come to restore the Tsar, why had we come, invad- 
ing Russia, and burning Russian homes? We spoke conciliatingly of 
'friendly intervention,' of bringing peace and order to this distracted 
country, to the poor moujik, when what he saw were his villages a torn 
battle ground of two contending armies, while the one had forced itself 
upon him, requisitioned his shaggy pony, burned the roof over his head, 
and did whatever military necessity dictated. It was small concern to 
Ivan whether the Allies or the Bolsheviks won this strange war. He 
did not know what it was all about, and in that he was like the rest of 
us. But he asked only to be left alone, in peace to lead his simple life, 
gathering his scanty crops in the hot brief months of summer and dream- 
ing away the long dreary winter on top of his great oven-like stove, an 
unworrying fatalistic disciple of the philosophy of nitchevoo." 

After the fierce battle to hold Toulgas, the only contact with the enemy 
was by patrols. "D" Company came up from Chamova and relieved "B" 
Company for a month. Work was constantly expended upon the winter 
defenses. The detachment of SlOth Engineers was to our men an invaluable 
aid. And when "B" went up to Toulgas again late in January, they found 
the fortifications in fine shape. But meanwhile rumors were coming in per- 
sistently of an impending attack. 

The Bolo made his long expected night attack January 29, in conjunction 
with his drive on the Vaga, and was easily repulsed. Another similar attack 
was made a little later in February, which met with a similar result. It was 
reported to us that the Bolo soldiers held a meeting in which they declared 
that it was impossible to take Toulgas, and that they would shoot any 
officer who ordered another attack there. 

It was during one of the fracases that Lt. Dressing captured his prisoner. 
With a sergeant he was inspecting the wire, shortly after the Bolo had been 
driven back, and came upon a Bolo who threw up his hands. Dressing drew 
his revolver, and the sergeant brought his rifle down to a threatening posi- 
tion, the Bolo became frightened and seized the bayonet. Dressing wishing 
to take the prisoner alive grabbed his revolver by the barrel and aimed a 
mighty swing. Unfortunately he forgot that the British revolver is fastened 
to a lanyard, and that the lanyard was around his shoulder. As a result his 
swing was stopped in midair, nearly breaking his arm, the Bolo dropped the 
bayonet and took it on the run, getting away safely, leaving Dressing with 
nothing to bring in but a report. 

March 1st we met with a disaster, one of our patrols being ambushed, and 
a platoon sent out to recover the wounded meeting a largely superior force, 
which was finally dispersed by artillery. We lost eight killed and more 

111 



The AMERICAN EXPEDlflO!^ 

wounded. Sergeant Bowman, one of the finest men it has been my privilege 
to know, was killed in this action and his death was a blow personally to 
every man in the company. 

Corporal Prince was in command of the first patrol, which was ambushed. 
In trying to assist the point, who was wounded, Prince was hit. When we 
finally reached the place of this encounter the snow showed that Prince had 
crawled about forty yards after he was wounded and fired his rifle several 
times. He had been taken prisoner. 

From this time on the fighting in the Upper Dvina was limited to the 
mere patrol activities. There to be sure was always a strain on the men. 
Remembering their comrades who had been ambushed before, it took the 
sturdiest brand of courage for small parties to go out day and night on the 
hard packed trails, to pass like deer along a marked runway with hunter 
ready with cocked rifle. The odds were hopelessly against them. The vigil- 
ance of their patrols, however, may account for the fact that even after his 
great success on the Vaga, the commander of Bolshevik Northern Army did 
not send his forces against the formidably guarded Toulgas. 

One day we were ordered by British headquarters to patrol many miles 
across the river where it had been reported small parties of Bolos were raid- 
ing a village. We had seventeen sleighs drawn by little shaggy ponies, which 
we left standing in their harnesses and attached to the sleighs while we slept 
among the trees beside a great roaring blaze that our Russian drivers piled 
high with big logs the whole night through; and the next morning, in the 
phantom gloom we were off again, gliding noiselessly through the forest, 
charged with the unutterable stillness of infinite ethereal space; but, as the 
shadows paled, there was unfolded a fairyland of enchanted wonders that I 
shall always remember. Invisible hands of artistry had draped the count- 
less pines with garlands and wreaths of white with filmy aigrettes and huge, 
ponderous globes and festoons woven by the frost in an exquisite and fan- 
tastic handiwork; and when the sun came out, as it did for a few moments, 
every ornament on those decorated Christmas trees glittered and twinkled 
with the magic of ten thousand candles. It was enchanted toyland spread 
before us and we were held spell bound by a profusion of airy wonders 
that unfolded without end as we threaded our way through the forest flanked 
by the straight, towering trunks. 

After a few miles the ponies could go no further through the high drifts, 
so we left them and made our way on snowshoes a long distance to a group 
of log houses the reported rendezvous of the Bolsheviks, but there were no 
Bolos there, nor any signs of recent occupancy, so we burned the huts and 
very wearily dragged our snow shoes the long way back to the ponies. They 
were wet with sweat when we left them belly deep in the snow ; but there 
they were, waiting with an attitude of patient resignation truly Russian and 
they made the journey homeward with more speed and in higher spirits 
than when they came. There is only one thing tougher than the Russian 
pony and that is his driver, for the worthies who conducted us on this 
lengthy journey walked most of the way through the snow and in the in- 

IIS 



r 
I 




-•■ ii ^^.1t>-: ..ifi 



';'^i ,mepn 



iS-H- 



Something Like a Selective Draft 




Canadian Artillery, Kurgomin 





us OFFICI'L 



U S OFFICIAL 



Watck-Toiver, Verst 1/55 



Toulgas Outpost 





U. S. OFFICIAL 



US OFF CIAL 



One of a Bolo Patrol 



Patrolling 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

tense cold, eating -^ little black bread, washed down with hot tea, and sleep- 
ing not at all. 

Those long weeks of patrol and sentry duty were wearing on the men. 
Sentinels were continually seeing things at night that were not. Once we 
were hurried out into the cold darkness by the report of a great multitude 
of muttering voices approaching from the forest, but not a shot answered 
our challenge and the next morning there in the snow were the fresh tracks 
of timber wolves — a pack had come to the end of the woods — no wonder the 
Detroit fruit salesman on guard thought the Bolos were upon us. 

But not long afterwards the Bolos did come and more cunningly and 
stealthily than the wolf pack, for in the black night they crept up and were 
engaged in the act of cutting the barbed wire between the blockhouses, wl.cn 
a sentinel felt — there was no sound — something suspicious, and sped a series 
of machine gun bullets in the direction he suspected. There was a fight 
lasting for hours, and in the morning many dead Bolos were lying in the 
deep snow beyond the wire defenses. They wore white smocks which, at 
any distance, in the dim daylight, blended distinctly with the snow and at 
night were perfectly invisible. We were grateful to the sentinel with the 
intuitive sense of impending danger. Some soldiers have this intuition. It 
is beyond explanation but it exists. You have only to ask a soldier who 
has been in battle combat to verify the truth of this assertion. 

Still we decided not to rely entirely upon this remarkable faculty of 
intuition, some man might be on watch not so gifted; and so we tramped 
down a path inside the wire encompassing the center village. During the 
long periods between the light we kept up an ever vigilant patrol. 

The Bolos came again at a time when the night was blackest, but they 
could not surprise us, and they lost a great many men, trying to wade through 
waist deep snow, across barbed wire, with machine guns working from behind 
blockhouses two hundred yards apart. It took courage to run up against 
such obstacles and still keep going on. When we opened fire there was always 
a great deal of yelling from the Bolos — commands from the officers to go 
forward, so our interpretors said, protests from the devils, even as they 
protested, many were hit; but it is to be noted that the officers stayed in the 
background of the picture. There was no Soviet leader who said "follow 
me" through the floundering snow against those death scattering machine 
guns — it did not take a great deal of intelligence to see what the chances 
were. 

So weeks passed and we held on, wondering what the end would be. We 
did not fear that we should lose Toulgas. With barbed wire and our sur- 
rounding blockhouses we were confident that we could withstand a regiment 
trying to advance over that long field of snow ; but the danger lay along our 
tenuous line of communication. 

The plight of the Yankee soldier in North Russia fighting the Bolsheviki 
in the winter of 1918-19 was often made the subject of newspaper cartoon. 
Below is reproduced one of Thomas' cartoons from The Detroit News, which 
shows the doughboy sitting in a Toulgas trench — or a Kodish, or Shred 
Makrengo, or Pinega, or Chekuevo, or Railroad trench. Of course this 

113 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

dire position was at one of those places and at one of those times before 
the resourceful Yanks had had time to consolidate their gains or fortify 
their newly accepted position in rear of their former position. In a few 
hours — or few days at most, the American soldier would have dug in 
securely and made himself rudely comfortable. That rude comfort would 
last till some British officer decided to "put on a bit of a show," or till 
the Reds in overwhelming numbers or with tremendous artillery pounding — 
or both combined, compelled the Yanks to fight themselves into a new 
position and go through the Arctic rigors of trench work again in zero 
weather for a few days. The cartoonist knows the unconquerable spirit 
of humor with which the American meets his desperate situations; for he 
puts into the soldier's mouth words that show that although he may have 
more of a job than he bargained for, he can joke with his buddie about it. 
As reserve officers of that remarkable North Russian expeditionary force the 
writers take off their hats in respect to the citizen soldiers who campaigned 
with us under conditions that were, truth to say, usually better but some- 
times much worse than the trench situation pictured by the cartoon below. 
With grit and gumption and good humor those citizen soldiers "endured 
hardness as good soldiers." 




114 



XIV 

Great White Reaches 

Lines Of Communication Guarded Well — Fast Travelling Pony Sleighs 
— Major Williams Describes Sled Trip — A Long Winter March — 
Visiting Three Hundred Year Old Monastery — Snowshoe Rabbit 
Story — Driving Through Fairyland — Lonely, Thoughtful Rides 
Under White North Star — Wonderful Aurora Borealis. 

We LEFT) "F" Company in the winter, swirling snows guarding the many 
points of danger oft the long lines of communication. They were in Decem- 
ber scattered all the way from Archangel to Morjegorskaya. For a few 
weeks in January, Lieut. Sheridan with his platoon sat on the Bolo lid- 
tilters in Leunova in the lower Pinega Valley and then was hurried down 
the Dvina to another threatened area. The Red success in pushing our 
forces out of Sheflkursk and down the Vaga made the upper Dvina and 
Vaga roads constantly subject to raiding parties of the Bolsheviki. 

Early in February "K" Company came up from Archangel and took 
station at Yemetskoe, one platoon being left at Kholmogori. "F" Company 
had been needed further to the front to support the first battalion companies 
hard pressed by the enemy. Nervous and suspected villages alike were 
vigilantly visited by strong patrols. On February 12th Captain Ramsay 
hurried up with two platoons to reinforce Shred Mekhrenga, traveling a 
distance of forty versts in one day. But the enemy retired mysteriously 
as he had oft before just when it seemed that he would overpower the 
British-Russian force that had been calling for help. So the Americans 
were free to go back to the more ticklish Vaga-Dvina area. 

From here on the story of "F" Company on the lines of communication 
merges into the story of the stern rear guard actions and the final holding 
up of the advance of the Reds, and their gallant part will be read in the 
narrative related elsewhere. 

Mention has already been made of the work of "G" and "M" Company 
platoons on the isolated Pinega Valley lines and of "H" Company guarding 
the very important Onega-Obozerskaya road, over which passed the mails 
and reinforcements from the outside world. The cluster of villages called 
Bolsheozerki was on this road. Late in March it was overpowered by a 
strong force of the Reds and before aid could come the Bolshevik Northern 
Army commander had wedged a heavy force in there, threatening the key- 
point Obozerskaya. This point on the line of communication had been 
guarded by detachments from the Railroad force at Obozerskaya, Americans 
alternating with French soldiers, and both making use of Russian Allied 
troops. At the time of its capture it was occupied by a section of French 
supported by Russian troops. The story of its recapture is told elsewhere. 

The trail junction point Volshenitsa, between Seletskoe and Obozerskaya, 
was fitted up with quarters for soldiers and vigilantly guarded against 

115 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

surprise attacks by the Reds from 443, or Emtsa. Sometimes it was held 
by British and Russians from Seletskoe and sometimes by Americans from 
Obozerskaya. 

It sounds easy to say "Guarding lines of communication." But any 
veteran of the North Russian expedition will tell you that the days and 
nights he spent at that duty were often severe tests. When that Russki 
thermometer was way below forty and the canteen on the hip was solid 
ice within twenty minutes of leaving the house, and the sleigh drivers' 
whiskers were a frozen Niagara, and your little party had fifteen versts to 
go before seeing another village, you wondered how long you would be 
able to handle your rifle if you should be ambushed by a party of Bolos. 

With the settling down of winter the transportation along the great winter 
reaches of road became a matter of fast traveling pony sleighs with frequent 
exchange of horses. Officers and civil officials found this travel not un- 
pleasant. The following story, taken from the Red Cross Magazine and 
adapted to this volume, will give the doughboy a pleasing recollection and 
the casual reader a vivid picture of the winter travel. 

This might be the story of Captain Ramsay driving to Pinega in January 
to visit that front. Or it might be old "Three-Hair" Doc Laird sledging 
to Soyla to see "Military Pete" Primm's sturdy platoon. Ot it might be 
Colonel Stewart on his remarkable trip to the river winter fronts. However, 
it is the story of the active American Red Cross Major Williams, who hit 
the long trails early and showed the rest the way. 

"I have just returned from a trip by sled up the Pinega River, to the 
farthest point on that section where American troops are located. The trip 
consumed six days and this, with the trip to the Dvina front, makes a 
total of twenty days journeying by sled and about eight hundred miles 
covered. Horses and not reindeer are used for transport. The Russian 
horse, like the peasant, must be a stout breed to stand the strain and stress 
of existence. They are never curried, are left standing in the open for 
hours, and usually in spots exposed to cruel winds when there is a semblance 
of shelter available within a few feet. The peasants do not believe in 
'mollycoddling' their animals, nor themselves. 

"On the return trip from Dvina I had a fine animal killed almost instantly 
by his breaking his neck. It was about five o'clock in the afternoon, pitch 
dark of course, and our Russian driver who, clad in reindeer skin and 
hood, resembled for all the world a polar bear on the front of the sled 
shouted meaningless and unnecessary words to our two horses to speed 
them on their way. 

"All sexes and ages look alike in these reindeer parkis. We were in a 
semi-covered sled with narrow runner, but with safety skids to prevent it 
from completely capsizing. At the foot of every Russian hill the road 
makes a sharp turn. For a solid week we had been holding on at these 
turns, but finally had become accustomed, or perhaps I should say resigned, 
to them. Going down a long hill the horse holds back as long as he can, 
the driver assisting in retarding the movement of the sled. But on steep 
hills, where this is not possible, it is a case of a run for life. 

116 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

"Our horse shied sharply at a sleeping bag which had been thrown from 
a baggage sled ahead. The safety skids could not save us, but made the 
angle of our overturn more complete. Kirkpatrick, several pieces of his 
luggage, and an abnormal quantity of hay added to my discomfort. His 
heavy blanket roll, which he had been using as a back rest, was thrown 
twenty feet. The top of the sled acted as an ideal stlow scoop and my 
head was rubbed in the snow thoroughly before our little driver, who was 
hanging on to the reins (b-r-r b-r-r b-r-r) could hold down the horse. 
It was not until an hour later, when our driver was bringing in our baggage, 
that I discovered that our lives had been in the hands of a thirteen-year- 
old girl. 

"After a trip of this sort one becomes more and more enthusiastic about 
his blanket roll. Sleeping at all times upon the floor, and occasionally 
packed in like sardines with members of peasant families all in the same 
room, separated only by an improvised curtain, we kept our health, appetites 
and humor. 

"A small village of probably two hundred houses. The American soldiers 
have been in every house. At first the villagers distrusted them. Now they 
are the popular men of the community with the elders as well as children. 
Their attitude toward the Russian peasant is helpful, conciliatory, and 
sympathetic. One of these men told me that on the previous day he had 
seen a woman crying on the street, saying that their rations would not hold 
out and they would be forced to eat straw. The woman showed me a piece 
of bread, hardly a square meal for three persons, which she produced care- 
fully wrapped as if worth its weight in gold from a box in the corner. 
They had been improvident in the use of their monthly ration of fifteen 
pounds of flour per person and the end of the month, with yet three days 
to go, found them in a serious dilemma. When the hard tack and sugar 
were produced they were speechless with astonishment. And the satisfaction 
of the American soldier was great to see. 

"Up on the Pinega River, many miles from any place, we passed a con- 
siderable body of American soldiers headed to the front. Every man was 
the picture of health, cheeks aglow, head up, and on the job. These same 
men were on the railroad front — four hundred miles in another direction — 
when I had seen them last. There they were just coming out of the front 
line trenches and block houses, wearing on their heads their steel hats and 
carrying on their backs everything but the kitchen stove. 

"Now they were rigged more for long marching, in fur caps, khaki coats 
of new issue with woollen lining, and many carried Alpine poles, for in 
some places the going was hard. 

"From our sled supply every man was given a package of Red Cross 
cigarettes, afld every man was asked if he had received his Christmas stock- 
ing. They all had. I dined, by the way, with General Ironside last night, 
and he was very strong in his praise for this particular body of men who 
have seen strenuous service and are in for more." 

One of the most memorable events in the history of a company of 
Americans in Russia was the march from Archangel to Pinega, one hundred 



» THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

and fifty miles in dead of winter. The first and fourth platoons made the 
forced march December 18th to 27th inclusive, hurrying to the relief of 
two platoons of another company with its back to the wall. 

TwQ weeks later the second and third platoons came through the same 
march even faster, although it was forty degrees below zero on three days, 
for it was told at Archangel that the other half of "M" Company was in 
imminent danger of extermination. 

The last instructions for the march, given in the old Smolny barracks, 
are typical of march orders to American soldiers : 

"We march tomorrow on Pinega. Many versts but not all in one day. 
We shall quarter at night in villages, some friendly, some hostile. We may 
meet enemy troops. We march one platoon ahead, one behind the 60-sleigh 
convoy. Alert advance and rear parties to protect the column from surprise. 

"Ours is a two-fold mission : First, to reinforce a half of another com- 
pany which is now outnumbered ten to one ; second, to raise a regiment of 
loyal Russian troops in the great Pinega Valley where half the people are 
loyal and half are Bolo sympathizers. We hold the balance of power. Hold 
up your chins and push out your chests and bear your arms proudly when 
passing among the Russian people. You represent the nation that was slow 
to wrath but irresistible in might when its soldiers hit the Hindenburg 
Line. Make Russians respect your military bearing. The loyal will breathe 
more freely because you have come. The treacherous Bolo sympathizers 
will be compelled to wipe off their scowls and will fear to try any dirty 
work. 

"And further, just as important, remember not only to bear yourselves as 
soldiers of a powerful people, but bear yourselves as men of a courteous, 
generous, sympathetic, chivalrous people. Treat these simple people right 
and you win their devoted friendship. Respect their oddities. Do not laugh 
at them as do untactful soldiers of another nation. Molest no man's property 
except of military necessity. You will discover likable traits in the char- 
acter of these Russians. Here, as everywhere in the world, in spite of 
differences of language and customs, of dress and work and play and eating 
and housing, strangers among foreign people will find that in the essentials 
of life folks is folks. 

"You will wear your American field shoes and Arctics in preference to 
the clumsy and slippery bottomed Shackleton boot. Overcoats will be piled 
loosely on top of sleighs so as to be available when delay is long. Canteens 
will be filled each evening at Company "G-F' can. Drink no water in villager's 
home. You may buy milk. Everyone must protect his health. We have no 
medical man and only a limited supply of number nines. 

"Tomorrow at noon we march. Prepare carefully and cheerfully." 

The following account of the march is copied from the daily story written 
in an officer's diary: 

To OuiMA — First Day, December 18th 

After the usual delay with sleigh drivers, with shoutings and "brrs" and 
shoving and pullings, the convoy was off at 11 :55 a. m. December 18. The 

118 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

trail was an improved government road. The sun was on our right hand 
but very low. The fire station of Smolny at last dropped out of the rear- 
ward view. Thie road ran crooked, like the Dvina along whose hilly banks 
it wound. A treat to our boys to see rolling, cleared country. Fish towns 
and lumber towns on the right. Hay stacks and fields on the left, backed by 
forests. Here the trail is bareswept by the wind from across the river. 
Again it is snow blown and men and ponies slacken speed in the drifts. 
Early sets the sun, but the white snow aflfords us light enough. The point 
is out of sight in front, the rear party is lost behind the curve. Tiny specks 
on the ice below and distant are interpreted to be sledges bound for some 
river port. Nets are exposed to the air and wait now for June suns to move 
out the fetters of ice. Decent looking houses and people face the strange 
cavalcade as it passes village after village. It is a new aspect of Russia to 
the Americans who for many weeks have been in the woods along the Vologda 
railroad. 

Well, halting is a wonderful performance. The headman — starosta — must 
be hunted up to quarter officers and men. He is not sure about the drivers. 
Perhaps he fears for the great haystacks in his yard. We cannot wait. In 
we go and Buffalo Bill's men never had anything on these Russki drivers. 
But it all works out, Slava Bogga for army sergeants. American soldiers 
are quick to pull things through anyway. Without friction we get all in 
order. Guard is mounted over the sleighs. Now we find out that Mr. Poole 
was right in talking about "friendly Russians." Our lowly hosts treat us 
royally. Tea from the samovar steams us a welcome. It is clean homes, 
mostly, soldiers find themselves in, — clean clothing, clean floors, oil lamps, 
pictures on the walls. 

To LlABJl-SKAYA — SeCOND DaY, DECEMBER 19TH 

Crawled out of our sheepskin sleeping bags about 6 :00 o'clock well rested. 
Breakfasted on bacon and bread and coffee. Gave headman ten roubles. 
Every soldier reported very hospitable treatment. Tea for all. Milk for 
many. Some delay caused by the sledge drivers who joined us late at night 
from Bakaritza with oats. Left at 8:40. Billeting party given an hour's 
start, travelling ahead of the point to get billets and dinner arranged. March- 
ing hard. Cold sleet from southeast with drifting snow. The Shackelton 
boot tricky. Men find it hard to navigate. Road very hilly. Cross this inlet 
here. Down the long hill and up a winding hill to the crest again which 
overhangs the stream that soon empties into the big Dvina. To the left on 
the ice-locked beach are two scows. It is warmer now for the road winds 
between the pines on both sides. The snow ceases gradually but we do not 
see the least brightness in the sky to show location of old Sol. We are 
making four versts an hour in spite of the hills and the cumbrous boots. The 
drivers are keeping up well. Only once is the advance party able to look 
back to the rear guard, the caravan being extended more than a verst. Here 
is another steep hill. See the crazy Russki driver give his pony his head 
to dash down the incline. Disaster hangs in a dizzy balance as he whirls 
round and round and the heavily loaded sled pulls horse backwards down 

119 



^ TMe American expedition 

the hill. Now we meet a larger party of dressed-up folks going to church. 
It is holy day for Saint Nicholas. 

The long hill leading into Liablskaya is a good tester for courage. Some 
of the men are playing out — eight versts more will be tough marching. Here 
is the billeting officer to tell us that the eight versts is a mistake — it is 
nineteen instead. We must halt for the night. No one is sorry. There is 
the blazing cook's fire and dinner will be ready soon. It is only 12:15, but 
it seems nearly night. Men are quickly assigned to quarters by the one-eyed 
old headman, Kardacnkov, who marks the building and then goes in to 
announce to the householder that so many Amerikanski soldats will sleep 
there. Twenty-five minutes later the rear guard is in. 0\ir host comes 
quickly with samovar of hot water and a pot of tea. He is a clerical man 
from Archangel, a soldier from the Caucasus. With our M. & V. we have 
fresh milk. 

It is dark before 3 :00 p. m. We need a lamp. All the men are well quar- 
tered and are trying to dry their shoes. We find the sergeants in a fine 
home. A bos'n of a Russian vessel is home on leave. We must sit in their 
party and drink a hop-ferment substitute for beer. Their coffee and cakes 
are delicious and we hold converse on the political situation. "American 
soldiers are here to stop the war and give Russia peace" is our message. In 
another home we find a war prisoner from Germany, back less than a week 
trom Petrograd front. He had to come around the Bolsheviki lines on the 
Vologda R. R. He says the B. government is on its last legs at Petrograd. 

To KosKOGOR — Third Day, December 20th 

Oh, you silvery moon, are you interested in that bugle call? It is telling 
our men to come to breakfast at once — 6:45, for we start for Koskogor at 
8 :00 a. m. or before. The start is made at 7 :45. Road is fine — well-beaten 
yesterday by marketing convoys and by Russians bound for church to cele- 
brate Saint Nick's Day. Between the pines our road winds. Not a breath 
of air has stirred since the fine snow came in the night and "ridged each 
twig inch deep with pearl." What a sight it would have been if the sun 
had come up. Wisconsin, we think of you as we traverse these bluffs. You 
tenth verst, you break a beautiful scene on us with your trail across the 
valley. You courageous little pony, you deserve to eat all that hay you are 
lugging up that hill. Your load is not any worse than that of the pony 
behind who hauls a giant log on two sleds. You deserve better treatment, 
Loshad. When Russia grows up to an educated nation animal power will be 
conserved. 

Here we see the primitive saw mill. Perched high on a pair of horses is 
a great log. Up and down cuts the long-toothed saw. Up pulls the man on 
top. Down draws the man on the ground. Something is lacking — it is the 
snap-ring that we so remember from boyhood wood-cutting days in Michigan. 

Here we are back to the river again and another picturesque scene with its 
formidable hill — Verst 18. But we get on fast for the end is in sight. The 
windmill for grinding grain tells us a considerable village is near. We 
arrive and stop on the top of the hill in the home of a merchant-peasant, 

120 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

Lopatkin : a fine home — house plants and a big clock and a gramophone. It 
is cold, for the Russian stove has not been fired since morning — great 
economy of fuel in a land of wood. 

To Kholmogora — Fourth Day, December 21st 

Harbinger of hope! Oh you red sky line! Shall we see the sun today? 
It is 8 :00 a. m. and from our hill top the wide red horizon in the south 
affords a wonderful scene. In the distance, headlands on the Dvina cut 
bold figures into the red. Far, far away stretches the flat river. Now we 
are safely down the long, steep hill and assembled on the river. Sergeant 
GetzloflF narrowly escapes death from a reckless civiHan's pony and sleigh. 
We crawl along the east shore for a verst and then cross squarely to the 
other side, facing a cold, harsh wind. What a wonderful subject for a pic- 
ture. Tall pines — tallest we have yet seen in Russia, on the island lift their 
huge trunks against the red, the broad red band on the skyline. And now, 
too, the upland joins itself to the scene. 

The going is drifty and sternly cold. Broad areas allow the biting wind 
full sweep. Ears are covered and hands are thrashed. That "stolen horse" 
pole there may be a verst post. Sure enough, and; "5,'' it says, "16 to go." 
Look now for the barber poles. We are too late to get a glimpse of the sun. 
Red is the horizon yet but the sun has risen behind a low cloud screen. The 
advance guard has outwalked the convoy and while ponies toil up the hill, 
we seek shelter in the lee of a house to rest, to smoke. The convoy at last 
comes up. One animal has a ball of ice on his foot. We make the drivers 
rest their ponies and look after their feet. Ten minutes and then on. 

It is a desperate cold. A driver's ears are tipped with white. The bugler's 
nose is frozen on the windward side. Everyone with yarn mittens only 
is busy keeping fingers from freezing. Here it is good going for the long 
straight road is flanked by woods that protect road from drifts and traveller 
from icy blasts. This road ends in a half mile of drifts before a town en 
the bank of a tributary to the Dvina. We descend to the river. 

So there you are, steamboat, till the spring break-up frees you and then 
you will steam up and down the river with logs and lumber and hemp and 
iron and glass and soldiers perhaps — but no Americans, I hope. What is 
this train that has come through our point? Bolshevik? Those uniforms 
of tha Russki M. P.'s are alarmingly like those we have been shooting at. 
Go on with your prisoners. Now it is noon. The sun is only a hand high in 
the sky. The day has grown grey and colder. Or is it lack of food that 
makes us more susceptible to winter's blasts? A bit of hard tack now during 
this rest while we admire the enduring red of the sky. We are nearing our 
objective. For several versts we have skirted the edge of the river and 
watched the spires and domes of the city come nearer to us. We wind into 
the old river town and pass on for a verst and a half to an old monastery 
where we find quarters in a subsidiary building which once was an orphan's 
home. The old women are very kind and hospitable. The rooms are clean 
and airy and warm. 

121 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

At Monastery — Fifth Day, December 22nd 

We spend the day at rest. Men are contented to lie on the warm floors 
and ease their feet and ankles. We draw our rations of food, forage and 
cigarettes. It is bitterly cold and we dread the morrow. The Madam Botch- 
koreva, leader of the famous women's Battalion of Death, comes ts call on 
us. She excites only mild interest among the soldiers. 

To Ust Pinega — Sixth Day, December 23rd 

Zero is here on the edge of a cutting wind. But we dash around and reor- 
ganize our convoy. Five sleds and company property are left at the 
monastery in charge of two privates who are not fit to march further. Five 
horses are unfit to go. Billeting party leaves about 8 :00 a. m. The convoy 
starts at 8 :40. Along the river's edge we move. A big twelve-verst horse- 
shoe takes us till noon. Men suffer from cold but do not complain. We 
put up in village. People are friendly. Officers are quartered with a good- 
natured peasant. Call up Pinega on long distance phone. We are needed 
badly. Officer will try to get sleighs to come to meet us forty versts out 
of Pinega. Maj. WilHams, Red Cross, came in to see us after we had gone 
to bed, on his way to Pinega. 

To Verkhne Palenga — Seventh Day, December 24th 

At breakfast telegram came from Pinega promising one hundred horses 
and Red Cross Christmas dinners. Get away at 7 :50 a. m. The lane is full of 
snow but the winding road through the pines is a wonderfully fine road. For 
thirteen versts there is hardly a drift. The hills are very moderate. Wood 
haulers are dotting the river. Stores are evidently collecting for scow trans- 
port in the summer. No, do not take to the ice. Keep on to the left, along 
the river. This hill is not so bad. We lost our point on a tortuous road, but 
find that we have avoided a ravine. The fourteenth verst takes us across 
the river — follow the telephone wires there. Come back, you point, and take 
the road to the left that climbs that steep bluflf yonder. What a sight from 
the top ! The whole convoy lies extended from advance guard on the hill 
to rear guard on the river. 

Up and down our winding pine-flanked road takes us. It is hard going 
but the goal is only a few versts away. Now we are in sight of the village 
and see many little fields. Oh boy ! see that ravine. This town is in two 
parts. Hospitable is the true word. Men turn out and cut notches in the 
ice to help the ponies draw the sleds up the hill. It is some show. Several 
of the ponies are barely able to make the grade. The big man of the village 
is Cukov. We stay in his home — fine home. Headman Zelenian comes to 
see us. Opened our Red Cross Christmas stockings and doughboys share 
their meagre sweets with Russki children. 

To Leunovo — Eighth Day, December 25th 

Up at 6:00 for a Merry Christmas march. Away at 8:05. Good road for 
thirteen versts, to Uzinga. Here we stop and call for the headman who gets 
his men to help us down the hill to the river. Not cold. Holes in the river 
for washing clothes. Officer reported seeing women actually washing clothes. 

122 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

Found out what the high fences' are for. Hang their flax up to dry. The 
twenty-fourth verst into Leunovo is a hard drag. Quarters are soon found. 
People sullen. Forester, Polish man who lives in house apart at north end 
of village, tells me there are many Bolsheviki sympathizers in the town. 
Also that Ostrov and Kuzomen are aflfected similarly. This place will have 
to be garrisoned by American soldiers to protect our rear from treachery. 

To Gbach — Ninth Day, December 26th 

Delay in starting due to necessity for telephoning to Pinega in regard to 
rations and sleighs. Some error irv calculations. They had sleighs waiting 
us at Gbach this morning instead of tomorrow morning. Snow falling as we 
start on the river road at 8:25. We find it glada (level) nearly all the 
way but drifty and hard walking. Nevertheless we arrive at end of our 
twenty-one verst march at 1:35. Met by friendly villagers and well quar- 
tered. These people need phone and a guard the same as at Verkne Palenga. 
Find that people here view the villages of Ostrov and Kuzomen with distrust. 
Kulikoff, a prominent leader in the Bolo Northern army, hails from one of 
these villages. Spent an hour with the village schoolmaster. Had a big 
audience of men and boys. Sgt. Young and interpreter came through from 
Pinega to untangle the sleigh situation. We find that it is again all set here 
for an early start with one hundred sleighs. A spoiled can of M. & V. 
makes headquarters party desperately sick. 

To Pinega — Tenth Day, December 27th 

Hard to get up this morning. Horses and sleighs came early as promised. 
Put one man and his barrack bag and equipment into each sleigh and in many 
sleighs added a light piece of freight to lighten our regular convoy sleds. 
Got away at 9:00 a. m. Nice day for driving. The Russian sleigh runs 
smoothly and takes the bumps gracefully. Iti is the first time these solders 
have ridden in sleighs. Urgency impels us. Light ball snow falls. Much 
hay cut along this valley. We meet the genial. Red Cross man who passes 
out cigarettes and good cheer to all the men. 

Arrive at Soyla at noon. Some mistake made. The hundred horses left 
yesterday and the? headman goes out to get them again for us to go on this 
evenirtg. Seventeen sleighs got away at 3 :00 p. m. Twenty-five more at 
7:00 p. m. At 9:30 we got away with the remainder of company. Have a 
good sleigh and can sleep. Here is Yural and I must awake and telephone 
to Pinega to see how situation stands. Loafer in telegraph office informs 
us of the battle today resulting in defeat of White Guards, the volunteers of 
Pinega who were supporting the hundred Americans. Bad news. It is 
desperately cold. No more sleeping. The river road is bleak. We arrive 
at last — 3 :00 a. m. In the frosty night the hulks of boats and the bluffs 
of Pinega loom large. So endeth diary of the remarkable march. 

No group of healthy men anywhere in the world, no matter what the dan- 
ger and hardships, will long forego play. It is the safety valve. It may be 
expressed in outdoor sports, or indoor games, or in hunting, fishing or in 
some simple diversion. It may be in a tramp or a ride into some new scenery 
to drink in beauty, or what not, even to getting the view-points of strange 

123 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 
i 

peoples. What soldier will ever forget the ride up to the old three-hundred- 
year-old monastery and the simple feed that the monks set out for them. 
Or who will forget the dark night at Kodish when the orator called out to 
the Americans and they joshed him back with great merriment. 

Often the soldier on the great line of communication duty whiled away 
an hour helping some native with her chores. "Her" is the right word, for 
in that area nearly every able-bodied man was either in the army, driving 
transport, working in warehouses, or working on construction, or old and 
disabled. Practically never was a strong man found at home except on fur- 
lough or connected with the common job of the peasants, keeping the; Bolo 
out of the district. 

For a matter of several weeks in weather averaging twenty-four degrees 
below zero three American soldiers were responsible for the patrol of seven 
versts of trail leading out from a village on the line of communication toward 
a Bolo position which was threatening it. One or all of them made this 
patrol by sleigh every six or eight hours, inspecting a cross-trail and a rest 
shack which Bolo patrols might use. Their plan was never to disturb the 
snow except on the path taken by themselves, so that any other tracks could 
be easily detected. One day there were suspicious signs and one of the men 
tramped a circle around the shack inspecting it from all sides before enter- 
ing it. 

Next morning, before daylight, another one of the trio made the patrol 
and being informed of the circle about the shack, saw what he took to be 
additional tracks leading out and into the shack and proceeded to burn the 
shack as his orders were, if the shack were ever visited and promised to 
be of use to the enemy. Later by daylight a comrade making the patrol 
came back with the joke on his buddie who in the darkness had mistaken a 
huge snowshoe rabbit's tracks, made out of curiosity smelling out the man's 
tracks. Often the patrol sled would travel for hours through a fairy land. 
The snow-laden trees would be interlaced over the trail, so that the sled 
travelled in a wonderful crystal, grey, green and golden tunnel. Filtering 
beams of sunlight ahead of it. A mist of disturbed snow behind it. No 
sound save from the lightly galloping pony, the ooh-chee-chee of the driver 
or the bump of the sleigh against a tree or a root, or the occasional thunder 
of a rabchik or wild turkey in partridge-like flight. Beside the trail or 
crossing might be seen the tracks of fox and wolf and in rare instances of 
reindeer. 

Or on the open road in the night: solemn again the mood of the doughboy 
as he recollects some of those lonely night rides. Here on his back in the 
hay of the little sled he reclines muffled in blankets and robes, his driver 
hidden in his great bearskin parki, or greatcoat, hidden all but his two pierc- 
ing eyes, his nose and whiskers that turned up to shield his face. With a 
jerk the fiery little pony pulls out, sending the two gleaming sled tracks to 
running rearward in distant meeting points, the woods to flying past the 
sleigh and the snow to squealing faintly under the runners ; sending the 
great starry heavens to sweep through the tops of the pine forest and send- 
ing the doughboy to long thoughts and solemn as he looks up at the North 

124 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

Star right above him and thinks of what his father said when he left home : 
"Son, you look at the North Star and I'll look at it and every time we will 
think of one another while you are away, and if you never come back, I'll 
look at the North Star and know that it is looking down at your grave where 
you went with a purpose as fixed as the great star and a motive as pure as 
its white light." Oh, those wonderful night heavens to the thoughtful man ! 
Every veteran at this point in the narrative thinks now of the wonderful 
flights when the Northern Lights held him in their spell. Always the sentry 
called to his mates to come and see. It cannot be pictured by brush or 
pen, this Aurora Borealis. It has action, it has color, sheets of light, spires, 
shafts, beams and broad finger-like spreadings, that come and go, filmy 
veils of light winding and drifting in, weaving in and out among the beams 
and shafts, now glowing, now fading. It may be low in the north or spread 
over more than half the heavens. It may shift from east to western quarter 
of the northern heaven. Never twice the same, never repeating the delicate 
pattern, nor staying a minute for the admirer, it brightens or glimmers, ad- 
vances or retreats, dies out gradually or vanishes quickly. Always a phe- 
nomenon of wortder to the soldier who never found; a zero night too cold 
for him to go and see, was the Aurora Borealis. 



Iii5 



XV 

Mournful Kodish 

DoNOGHUE Brings Valuable Reinforcements — Bolshevik Orator On 
Emtsa Bridge — Conditions Detrimental To Morale — Preparations 
For Attack On Kodish — Savage Fighting Blade To Blade — Bolshe- 
viks Would Not Give Way — Desperately Bitter Struggle — ^We Hold 
Kodish At Awful Cost — Under Constant And Severe Barrage — Half- 
Burned Shell-Gashed Houses Mark Scene Of Struggle — ^We Retire 
From Kodish — Again We Capture Kodish But Can Not Advance — 
Death Of Ballard — Counter Attack Of Reds Is Barely Stemmed — 
Both Sides See Futility Of Fighting For Kodish — "K" Means Kodish 
Where Heroic Blood Of Two Continents Stained Snows Richly. 

We left "K" Company and Ballard's platoon of machine gun men, heroes 
of the fall fighting at Kodish, resting in Archangel. We have seen that the 
early winter was devoted to building defenses against the Reds who showed 
a disposition to mass up forces for an attack. "K" Company had come back 
to the force in December and with "L" Company gone to reserve in Selet- 
skoe. Captain Donoghue had become "Major Mike" for all time and Lt. 
Jahns commanded the old company. Donoghue had taken back to the Kod- 
ish Force valuable reinforcements in the shape of Smith's and Tessin's trench 
mortar sections of "Hq" Company. 

It had been in the early weeks of winter during the time that Captain 
Heil with "E" Company and the first platoon machine gunners were hold- 
ing the Emtsa bridge line, that the Bolsheviki almost daily tried out their 
post-armistice propaganda. The Bolo commander sent his pamphlets in 
great profusion; he raised a great bulletin board where the American troops 
and the Canadian artillery forward observers could read from their side of 
the river his messages in good old I. W. W. style and content; he sent an 
orator to stand on the bridge at midnight and harangue the Americans by 
the light of the Aurora Borealis. 

He even went so far as to bring out to the bridge two prisoners whom 
the Bolos had had for many weeks. One was a Royal Scot lad, the other 
was Pvt. George Albers of "I" Company who had been taken prisoner one 
day on the railroad front. These two prisoners were permitted to stand near 
enough their comrades to tell them they were well treated. 

Captain Heil was just about to complete negotiations for the exchange 
of prisoners one day when a patrol from another Allied force raided the 
Bolos in the rear and interrupted the close of the deal. The Bolos were 
occupied with their arms. And shortly afterward Donoghue heard of the 
negotiations and the wily propaganda of the Reds and put a stop to it. On 
another page is told the story of similar artifices resorted to by the Reds on 
the Toulgas Front to break into the morale of the American troops. 

It was well that the American officer adopted firm measures. 

127 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

To be sure the great rank and file of American soldiers like their people 
back home could not be fooled by propaganda. They could see through Red 
propaganda as well as they could see through the old German propaganda 
and British propaganda and American for that matter. Of course not always 
clearly. But it was wise to avoid the stuff if possible, and to discount it 
good-humoredly when it did contact with us. The black night and short, 
hazy days, the monotonous food, the great white, wolf-howling distances, 

and the endless succession of one d hardship after another was quite 

enough. Add to that the really pathetic letters from home telling of sick- 
ness and loneliness of those in the home circle so far away, and the uselessly 
sobful letters that carried clippings from the partisan papers that grossly 
exaggerated and distorted stories of the Arctic campaign and also carried 
suggestions of resistance to the military authorities, and you have a situa- 
tion that makes us proud at this time of writing that our American men 
showed a real stamina and morale that needs no apology. 

The story of this New Year's Day battle with the Bolos proves the point. 
For six weeks "E" Company had been on the line. Part of "L" Company 
had been sent to reinforce Shred Makrenga and the remainder was at Selet- 
skoe and split up into various side detachments. Now they came for the 
preparations for their part in the united push on Plesetskaya, mentioned 
before. "K" Company came up fresh from its rest in Archangel keen to 
knock the Bolo out of Kodish and square the November account. Major 
Donoghue was to command the attacking forces, which besides "E" and "K" 
consisted of one section of Canadian artillery, one platoon of the "M. G." 
Company, one trench mortar section, a medical detachment and a detachment 
of 310th Engineers who could handle a rifle if necessary with right good 
will. Each unit, caught a gleam of fire from the old Irishman's eye as he 
looked them over on December 28th and 29th, while "L" Company came up 
to take over the front so as to relieve the men for their preparations for 
the shock of the battle. 

The enemy was holding Kodish with two thousand seven hundred men, 
supported by four pieces of artillery and a reserve of seven hundred men. 
Donoghue had four hundred fifty men. At 6:00 a. m. "E" and "K" Companies 
were on the east bank of the Emtsa moving toward the right flank of the 
Bolos and firing red flares at intervals with Very pistol to inform Donoghue 
of their progress. 

Meanwhile the seven Stokes mortars were putting a fifteen-minute bar- 
rage of shells, a great 1000-shell burst, on the Bolo trenches, which added 
to the 20-gun machine and Lewis gun barrage, demoralized the Red front 
line and gave the two infantry companies fifteen minutes later an easy vic- 
tory as they swung in and on either side of the road advanced rapidly toward 
Kodish village. Meanwhile the Canadian artillery pounded the Bolo reserves 
in Kodish. 

The Reds tried to rally at a ridge of ground a verst in front of Kodish 
but the dreadful trench mortars again showered them at eight hundred 
yards with this new kind of hell and they were easily dislodged by the 
infantry and machine gun fire. At 1 :00 p. m. after seven hours hard fight- 

128 





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OFFICIAL PHOTO 




Russian Eskimos at Home, Near Pinega 




Fortified House, Toulgas 




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U S OFFICIAL 



To Bolsheozerki 



Colonel Morris — at Right 





Russian Ejkimo Idol 



RED CROSS 



Ambulance Men 







French Machine Gun Men at Kodish 




X-iL_i 



Allied Plane Carrying Bombs 



S OFFICIAL PHOTO 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

ing the Americans were again in possession of Kodish. An interesting side 
incident of this recapture of Kodish was the defeat of a company of Reds 
occupying a Kodish flank position at the church on the river two versts away. 
The Reds disputed but Sergeant Masterson and fifteen men of "E" Com- 
pany dislodged them. But time was valuable. Donoghue's battle order that 
day called for his force to take Kodish and its defenses, Avda and its de- 
fenses and to occupy Kochmas. Only a matter of twenty miles of deep 
snow and hard fighting. 

So the enemy was attacked again vigorously at one of the old fighting 
spots of the fall campaign, at Verst 12. As in the previous fighting the 
Red Guards, realizing the strategic value of this road fought tenaciously 
for every verst of it. They had been prepared for the loss of Kodish village 
itself; it was untenable. But they refused to budge from Verst 12. The 
trench mortars could not reach their dugout line. And the Red machine 
guns poured a hot fire into the village of Kodish as well as into the two 
platoons that forced their way a half a verst from the village toward this 
stubborn stronghold of the Reds. 

Darkness fell on the combatants locked in desperate fight. All the Amer- 
ican forces were brought up into Kodish for they had expected to get on to 
Avda as their order directed. Out in front the night was made lurid by 
flares and shell fire and gun fire where the two devoted platoons of "K" 
and "E" Companies with two machine guns of the first platoon of "M. G." 
Company hung on. Lts. Jahns, Shillson and Berger were everywhere among 
their men and met nothing but looks of resolution from them, for if this 
little force of less than a hundred men gave way the whole American force 
would be routed from Kodish, There could be no orderly retreat from the 
village under such desperate conditions in the face of such numbers. They 
had to stick on. Half their number were killed and wounded, among whom 
was the gallant Lt. Berger of "E" Company who had charged across the 
bridge in the morning in face of machine gun fire. Sergeants Kenney and 
Grewe of "K'' Company gave their lives that night in moving courageously 
among their men. Frost bites cruelly added to the miseries of those long 
night hours after the fighting lulled at eleven o'clock. 

Morning discovered the force digging in. The odds were all against them. 
Again they were standing in Kodish where after personal reconnaisance Col. 
Lucas, their nominal superior officer, commanding Vologda Force, had said 
no troops should be stationed as it was stragetically untenable. But a new 
British officer had come into command of the Seletskoe detachment, and 
perhaps that accounts for the foolhardy order that the doughty old Donoghue 
received; "Hold what you have got and advance no further south; prepare 
defenses of Kodish." What an irony of fate. His force had been the only 
one of the various forces that had actually put any jab into the push on 
Plesetskaya. Now they were to be penalized for their very desperately won 
success. 

The casualties had been costly and had been aggravated by the rapid 
attacks of the frost upon hands and feet. In temperature way below zero 
the men lay in the snow on the outskirts and in that lowly village under 

129 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

machine gun fire and shrapnel. They undermined the houses to get warmth 
and protection in the dugouts thus constructed under them. Barricades they 
built; and chipped out shallow trenches in the frozen ground. Again the 
trench mortar came into good use. A platoon of "K" and a platoon of "E" 
found themseivs partly encircled by a strong force of Reds, with a single 
mortar near them to support. This mortar although clogged repeatedly with 
snow and ice worked off two hundred fifty shells on the Reds and finally 
spotted the enemy machine gun positions and silenced them, contributing 
greatly to the silencing of the enemy fire and to his discouragement. 

The firer of this mortar, Pvt. Barone of "Hq" Company, who worked 
constantly, a standing target for the Bolos, near the end of the fight fell 
with a bullet in his leg. And so the Americans scrapped on. And they did 
hold Kodish. Seven were killed and thirty-five wounded, two mortally, in 
this useless fight. Lt. O'Brien of "E" Company was severely wounded and 
at this writing is still in hospital. "The memories of these brave fellows," 
says Lt. Jack Commons, "who went as the price exacted, Lt. Berger of "E" 
Company, Sgts. Kenney and Grewe and many other steady and courageous 
and loyal pals through the months of hardship that had preceded, made 
Kodish a place horrible, detested, and unnerving to the small detachment that 
held it." 

Meanwhile their fellows at the river bank with the engineers were slash- 
ing down the trees on the Bolo side clearing the bank to prevent surprise of 
the Allied position over the seven foot ice that now made the river into a 
winding roadway. More blockhouses and gun positions were put in. It was 
only a matter of time till they would have to retreat to the old position on 
the river. 

On January 4th Donoghue sent "E'' Company back to occupy and help 
strengthen the old position at the river, from where they sent detachments 
forward to help "K'' and "M. G." and trench mortar hold the shell-shattered 
village of Kodish. The enemy confined himself chiefly to artillery shelling, 
always replied to vigorously by our gallant Canadian section who, though 
outgunned, sought to draw part of the enemy fire their way to lighten the 
barrage on their American comrades caught like rats in the exposed village. 
From their three hills about the doomed village of Kodish the Reds kept up 
a continuous sharpshooting which fortunately was too long range to be 
effective. And the enormous losses which the Reds had suffered on their 
side that bloody New Year's Day made them hesitate to move on the village 
with infantry to be mowed down by those dreadful Amerikanski fighters, 
when a few days of steady battering with artillery would perhaps do just as 
well. 

Flesh and blood can stand only so much. Terrible was the strain. No 
wonder that on the seventh day of this hell a lieutenant with a single platoon 
holding the village after receiving magnified reports from his patrols of 
strong Bolo flanking forces, imagined a general attack on Kodish. The 
French Colonel, V. O. C. O., had said Kodish should not be held. And in 
the night he set fire to the ill-fated village and retreated to the river. Swift 
came the command from the fiery old Donoghue: "Back to that village 

130 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

with me> the Reds shall not have it." And his men reoccupied it before dawn. 
But no one but they can ever know how they suffered. The cold twenty 
below zero stung them in the village half burned. Their beloved old com- 
mander's words stung them. Hateful to them was the certainty that he was 
grimly carrying out a written order superior indeed to the French Colonel's 
V. O. but which was not based on a true knowledge of the situation by the 
far-distant British officer who went over Col. Lucas' head and ordered 
Kodish held. Could they hold on? They did, with a display of fortitude that 
became known to the world and which makes every soldier who was in the 
expedition thrill with honest pride and admiration for them. The Americans 
held it till they were relieved by a company of veteran fighters, the King's 
Liverpools, supported by a half company of "Dyer's Battalion" of Russians. 

In passing let it be remarked that the English officer. Captain Smerdon, 
soon succeeded in convincing the British O. C. Seletskoe that Kodish was 
no place for any body of soldiers to hold. He gallantly held it but only 
temporarily, for soon he and the Canadians and trench mortar and machine 
gun men and the Dyer's Battalion men were back under Major Donoghue 
holding the old Emtsa river line and its two supporting blockhouse lines. 

Our badly shattered "E" Company and "K" Company went to reserve in 
Seletskoe. The former company in the middle of January went to Arch- 
angel for a ten day rest, and will be heard of later in the winter on another 
desperate front. Old "K" Company was glad to just find warm bunks in 
Seletskoe and regain their old fighting pep that had been exhausted in the 
New Year's period of protracted fighting under desperate odds. Here let us 
insert the story of a two-man detachment of those redoubtable trench mor- 
tar men who rivalled their comrades' exploits with rifle and bayonet or 
machine gun. . Corp. Andriks and Fvt. Forthe of "Hq" Company trench 
mortar platoon were loaned for a few days to the British officer at Shred 
Makrenga to instruct his Russian troops in the use of the Stokes mortars. 
But the two Yanks in the two months they were on that hard-beset front 
spent most of their time in actually fighting their guns rather than in teach- 
ing the Russians. This is only one of many cases of the sort, where small 
detachments of American soldiers sent off temporarily on a mission, were 
kept by the British officers on active duty. They did such sterling service. 

Ever hear of the "lost platoon of "D" Company?" Like vagabonds they 
looked when finally their platoon leader, Lt. Wallace, cut loose from the 
British officer and reported back to Lieut.-Col. Corbley on the Vaga. But the 
erratic Reds would not settle down to winter quarters. They had frustrated 
the great push on Plesetskaya with apparent ease. They had the Allied war- 
riors now ill at ease and nervous. 

The trench mortar men aiid the machine gun men can tell many an inter- 
esting story of those January days on the Kodish Front serving there with 
the mixed command of Canadians and King's Liverpools and Dyer's Bat- 
talion of Russians. These latter were an uncertain lot of chaiige-of heart 
Bolshevik prisoners and deserters and accused spies and so forth, together 
with Russian youths from the streets of Archangel, who for the uniform 
with its brass buttons and the near-British rations of food and tobacco had 

131 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

volunteered to "help save Russia." By the rugged old veteran, Dyer, they 
had been licked into a semblance of fighting trim. This was the force which 
Major Donoghue had at command when again came the order to take Kod- 
ish. This time it was not a great offensive push to jab at the Red Army 
vitals, but it was a defensive thrust, a desperate operation to divert attention 
of the Reds from their successful winter operations against the Shred 
Makrenga front. Two platoons of Couriers du Bois, the well trained 
Russian White Guards under French tutelage, and those same Royal Marines 
that had been with him the first time Kodish was taken in the bloody fight 
in the fall. And Lt. Ballard's gallant platoon of machine gun men came 
to relieve the first "M. G." platoon and to join the drive. They had an old 
score to settle with the Bolos, too. 

Again the American officer led the attack on Kodish and this time easily 
took the village, for the Reds were wise enough not to try to hold it. Their 
first lines beyond the village yielded to his forces after stiff fighting, but 
the old 12th Verst Pole position held three times against the assaults of 
the Allied troops. 

Meanwhile the courageous "French-Russians" had marched fourteen 
miles through the woods, encircling the Bolo flank, and fell upon his artillery 
position, captured the guns and turned them upon the Red reserves at Avda. 
But the other forces could not budge the Reds from Verst 12 and so the 
Couriers du Bois, after holding their position against counter attack all the 
afternoon, blew up the Red field pieces and retreated in the face of a fresh 
Bolo battalion from Avda. 

And during the afternoon the Americans who were engaged in this fight 
lost an officer whose consummate courage and wonderful cheerfulness had 
won him the adoration of his men and the respect and love of the officers 
who worked with him. 

Brave, energetic, cheerful old Ballard's death filled the Machine Gun 
Company and the whole regiment with mingled feelings of sorrow and pride. 
Over and beyond the call of duty he went to his death while striving to 
save the fortune of the day that was going against his doughty old leader 
Donoghue. He did not know that the Liverpool Company had left a hole 
in the line by finding a trail to the rear after their second gallant but 
fruitless assault, and he went forward of his own initiative, with a Russian 
Lewis gun squad to find position where he could plant one of his machine 
guns to help the S. B. A. L. platoons and Liverpools whom old Donoghue 
was coming up to lead in another charge on the Bolo position. 

Lt. Ballard ran into the exposed hole in the line and pushed forward to 
a place where his whole squad was ambushed and the Russian Lewis gunner 
was the only one to get out. He returned with his gun and dropped among 
the Americanski machine gunners, telling of the death of Ballard and the 
Russian soldiers at the point of the Bolshevik bayonets. Lt. Commons 
of "K" Company declares that Ballard met his death at that place by getting 
into the hole in the line which he supposed was held by English and Russians 
and by being caught in a cross fire of Bolo Colt machine guns. Whichever 
way it was, his body was never seen nor recovered. Hope that he might 

133 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

have been taken as a wounded prisoner by the Reds still lived in the hearts 
of his comrades. And all officers and men of the American forces who 
came into Detroit the following July vainly wished to believe with the girl 
who piteously scanned every group that landed, that Ballard might yet 
be heard from as a prisoner in Russia. No doubt he was killed. 

The battle continued. Finally the withdrawal of the Couriers du Bois 
and the coming through of the Avda Battalion of the Reds, together with 
Red reinforcements from Kodlozerskaya-Pustin, reduced Donoghue's force 
to a stern defensive and he retreated at five o'clock in good order to the 
old lines on the river. 

The half-burned and scarred buildings of Kodish mournfully reminded 
the soldier of the losses that had decimated the ranks of the forces that 
fought and refought over the village. Into their old strongholds they 
retired, keeping a sharp lookout for the expected retaliation of the Reds. 
It came two days later. And it nearly accounted for the entire force, although 
that was not so remarkable, Lt. Commons, the Major's adjutant, says, be- 
cause so many even of the shorter engagements on this and other fronts had 
been equally narrow squeaks for the Americans and their Allies. . 

The Reds in this fight reached the second line of defense with their 
flanking forces, and bombarded it with new guns brought up from Pleset- 
skaya. Meanwhile, all along the front they attacked in great force and 
succeeded in taking one blockhouse, killing the seven gallant Liverpool 
lads who fought up all their ammunition and defied the Bolo steel to steel. 
But the remainder of the front held, largely through the effective work 
of the American trench mortar and the deadly machine gunners shooting 
for revenge of the death of Ballard, their nervy leader, held fast their 
strongholds. 

At last the Reds found their losses too severe to continue the attack. 
And they had been constantly worried by the gallant Russian Couriers du 
Bois, who fearlessly stayed out in the woods and nipped the Bolo forces in 
flank or rear. And so they withdrew. There was little more fighting on 
this front. The Reds were content to let well enough alone. Kodish in 
ruins was theirs. Plesetskaya was safe from threats on that hard fought 
road. 

This was the last fight for the Americans on the Kodish Front. "K" 
Company had already looked for the last time on the old battle scenes and 
at the wooden crosses which marked the graves of their heroic dead, and 
had gone to Archangel to rest, later to duty on the lines of communication 
at Kholmogori and Yemetskoe. Now the trench mortar platoon and "M. G." 
platoon went to the railroad front, and Major Donoghue was the last one 
to leave the famous Kodish Front, where he had won distinction. It was 
now an entirely British-Russian front and the American officer who had 
remained voluntarily to lead in the last big fight because of his complete 
knowledge of the battle area now went to well-earned rest in Archangel. 

In closing the story of the Americans on the Kodish Front we turn 
to the words written us by Lt. John A. Commons : 

133 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

"Thus the Kodish Front was really home to the men of "K" Company, 
for most of their stay in the northern land. To "E" and "L" and Machine 
Gun and Trench Mortar "Hq" platoon it was also, but for a shorter period, 
their only shelter from the rains of the fall and the bite of the winter. 
"K", however, meant Kodish. There they had their first fight, there their 
dead were buried. There they had their last battle. And there their 
memories long will return, mostly disagreeable to be sure, but still repre- 
senting very definitely their part, performed with honesty, courage and 
distinction, in the big work that was given the Yankee doughboys to do 
'on the other side.' 

"The scraps mentioned here were the tougher part of the actions at the 
front. In between the line should be read first the cold as it was felt only 
out in the Arctic woods, away from the villages and their warm houses. 
Then, too, everything was one ceaseless and endless repetition of patrolling 
and scouting. Many were the miles covered by these lads from Detroit 
and other cities and towns of America among the soft snow and the ever- 
greens. Many a time did these small parties have their own little battles 
way out in the woods. Much has been said here and there of the influence 
of Bolshevik propaganda upon the American forces. It is true that these 
soldiers got a lot of it, and it is true that these soldiers read nearly all that 
they got. But it is true also that there was not a single incident of the 
whole campaign which could with honesty be attributed to this propaganda. 
On lihe Kodish Front it is quite safe to say that there was more of this 
ludicrous literature — not ludicrous to the Russian peasant, but very much 
so to the average American — taken in than on any other. Scarce a patrol 
went out which did not bring back something with which to while away a 
free hour or so, or with which to start a fire. It was always welcome. 

"But it was seriously treated in the same spirit that moved a corporal of 
Ballard's machine gun platoon who felt strongly the discrepancy between 
the remarks of the Bolshevik speaker on the bridge to the effect that his 
fellows were moved by brotherly love for the Yanks and the FACT that 
nine out of every ten Bolshevik cartridges captured had the bullets clipped. 
The corporal reciprocated later with a machine gun, not for the love but 
for the bullets. 

"So they stuck and fought, suffering through the bitter months of winter 
just below the Arctic Circle, where the winter day is in minutes and the 
night seems a week. And there is not one who is not proud that he was 
once a "side kicker" and a "buddy" to some of those fine fellows of the 
various units who unselfishly and gladly gave the last that a man has to 
give for any cause at all." 



1S4 



XVI 

UsT Padenga 

Positions Near Ust Padenga In January — Bolo Patrols — Overwhelming 
Assault By Bolos January Nineteenth — Through Valley Of Death 
— Canadian Artillery And Machine Gun Fire Punishes Enemy 
Frightfully When He Takes Ust Padenga — Death Of Powers — 
Enemy Artillery Makes American Position Untenable — Escaping 
From Trap — Retreating With Constant Rear-Guard Actions — ^We 
Lose Our Last Gun — "A" Company Has Miraculous Escape But Suf- 
fers Heavy Losses. 

Outside of routine patrolling, outpost duties and intermittent shelling and 
sniping, the early part of the month of January, 1919, was comparatively 
quiet on the Ust Padenga front. The troops now engaged in the defense of 
this sector were Company "A," 339th Infantry, a platoon of "A" Company, 
310th Engineers, Canadian Artillery, English Signal Detachment and several 
companies of Russians and Cossacks. 

It will be recalled that the main positions of our troops was in Netsvetiaf- 
skaya, on a high bluff overlooking Ust Padenga and Nijni Gora — the former 
about a thousand yards to our left front on the bank of the Vaga, and the 
latter about a mile to our right front located on another hill entirely sur- 
rounded by a deep ravine and valleys. In other words our troops v/ere in 
a V-shaped position with Netsvetiafskaya as the base of the V, Ust Padenga 
as the left fork, and Nijni Gora as the right fork of same. The Cossack 
troops refused to occupy the position of Nijni Gora, claiming that it was 
too dangerous a position and almost impossible to withdraw from in case 
they were hard pressed. Consequently, orders were issued from British head- 
quarters at Shenkursk, ordering an American platoon to occupy Nijni Gora 
and the Cossacks to occupy Ust Padenga. 

On the afternoon of January 18, the fourth platoon of Company "A," 
with forty-six men under command of Lieut. Mead, relieved the second 
platoon and took over the defense of Nijni Gora. The weather at this time 
was fearfully cold, the thermometer standing about forty-five degrees below 
zero. Rumors after rumors vv^ere constantly coming in to our intelligence 
section that the enemy was preparing to make a desperate drive on our posi- 
tions at this front. His patrols were getting bolder and bolder. A few 
nights before, one of the members of such a patrol had been shot down 
within a few feet of Pvt. George Moses, one of our sentinels, who, single 
handed, stood his post and held off the patrol until assistance arrived. We 
had orders to hold this front at all cost. By the use of field glasses we could 
see considerable activity in the villages in front of us and on our flanks, and 
during the night the inky blackness was constantly being illuminated by flares 
and rockets from many different points. It is the writer's opinion that these 
flares were used for the purpose of guiding and directing the movements of 
the troops that on the following day annihilated the platoon in Nijni Gora. 

135 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

On the morning of that fatal nineteenth day of January, just at dawn the 
enemy's artillery, which had been silent now for several weeks, opened Dp 
a terrific bombardment on our position in Nijni Gora. This artillery wasi 
concealed in the dense forest on the opposite bank of the Vaga far beyond 
the range of our own artillery. Far in the distance at ranges of a thousand 
to fifteen hundred yards, we could see long skirmish lines of the enemy clad 
in ordinary dark uniforms. Whenever they got within range we would open 
fire with rifles and machine guns which succeeded in repelling any concerted 
movement from this direction. At this time there were twenty-two men irt 
the forward position in command of Lt. Mead and about twenty-two men 
in command of the platoon sergeant in the rear position. After about an 
hour's violent shelling the barrage suddenly lifted. Instantly, from the deep 
snow and ravines entirely surrounding us, in perfect attack formation, arose 
hundreds of the enemy clad in white uniforms, and the attack was on. 

Time after time well directed bursts of machine gun fire momentarily 
held up group on group of the attacking party, but others were steadily and 
surely pressing forward, their automatic rifles and muskets pouring a veri- 
table hail of bullets into the thin line of the village defenders. Our men 
fought desperately against overwhelming odds. Corporal Victor Stier, seeing 
a Russian machine gun abandoned by the panic-stricken Russians in charge 
of same, rushed forward and manning this gun single-handed opened up a 
terrific fire on the advancing line. While performing this heroic task he was 
shot through the jaw by an enemy bullet. Still clinging to his gun he 
refused to leave it until ordered to the rear by his commanding officer. On 
his way back through the village he picked up the rifle of a dead comrade 
and joined hi§ comrades in the rear of the village determined to stick to the 
end. It was while in this position that he was again hit by a bullet which 
later proved fatal — his death occurring that night. He was an example of 
the same heroic devotion to duty that marked each member of this gallant 
company throughout the expedition. Being thus completely surrounded, the 
enemy now advancing with fixed bayonets, and many of our brave comrades 
lying dead in the snow, there was nothing left for those of us in the for- 
ward position to do but to cut our way through to the rear position in order 
to rejoin our comrades there. The enemy had just gained the street of the 
village as we began our fatal withdrawal — fighting from house to house in 
snow up to our waists, each new dash leaving more of our comrades lying 
in the cold and snow, never to be seen again. How the miserable few did 
succeed in eventually rejoining their comrades no one will ever know. We 
held on to the crest of the hill for a few moments to give our artillery oppor- 
tunity to open up on the village and thus cover our withdrawal. Again an- 
other misfortune arose to add more to the danger and peril of our with- 
drawal. A few days previously our gallant and effective Canadian artil- 
lery had been relieved by a unit of Russian artillery and during the 
early shelling this fateful morning, the Russian artillerymen deserted their 
guns — something that no Canadian ever would have done in such a situation. 
By the time the Russians were forced back to their guns at the point of a 
pistol in the hands of Captain Odjard, our little remaining band had been 

136 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

compelled to give way in the face of the terrific fire from the forests on. our 
flanks and the oncoming advance of the newly formed enemy line. To with- 
draw we were compelled to march straight down the side of this hill, across 
an open valley some eight hundred yards or more in the terrible snow, and 
under the direct fire of the enemy. There was no such thing as cover, for 
this valley of death was a perfectly open plain, waist deep with snow. To 
run was impossible, to halt was worse yet and so nothing remained but to 
plunge and flounder through the snow in mad desperation, with a prayer on 
our lips to gain the edge of our fortified positions. One by one, man after 
man fell wounded or dead in the snow, either to die from the grievous 
wounds or terrible exposure. The thermometer still stood about forty-five 
degrees below zero and some of the wounded were so terribly frozen that 
their death was as much due to such exposure as enemy bullets. Of this 
entire platoon of forty-seven men, seven finally succeeded in gaining the 
shelter of the main position uninjured. During the day a voluntary rescue 
party under commatid of Lieut. McPhail, "Sgt." Rapp, and others of Com- 
pany "A" with Morley Judd of the Ambulance Corps, went out into the snow 
under continuous fire and brought in some of the wounded and dead, but 
there were twelve or more brave men left behind in that fatal village whose 
fate was never known and still remains unknown to the present day, though 
long since reported by the United States War Department as killed in action. 
Many others were picked up dead in that valley of death later in the day 
and others died on their way back to hospitals. These brave lads made the 
supreme sacrifice, fighting bravely to the last against hopeless odds. Through 
prisoners later captured by us, we learned that the attacking party that 
morning numbered about nine hundred picked troops — so the reader will 
readily appreciate what chance our small force had. 

All that day and far into the night the enemy's guns continued hammer- 
ing away at our positions. Under cover of darkness the Russians and Cos- 
sacks in the village of Ust Padenga withdrew to our lines — a move which 
the enemy least suspected. The following days were just a repetition of this 
day's action. The enemy shelled and shelled our position and then sent 
forward wave after wave of infantry. The Canadian Artillery under com- 
mand of Lieut. Douglas Winslow rejoined us and, running their guns out in 
the open sight, simply poured muzzle burst of shrapnel into the enemy ranks, 
thus breaking up attack after attack. Two days later after a violent artillery 
preparation, the enemy, still believing our Russian comrades located in the 
village of Ust Padenga, started an open attack upon this deserted position 
over part of the same ground where so many of our brave comrades had 
lost their lives on the nineteenth. They advanced in open order squarely in the 
face of our artillery, machine gun, and rifle fire, but by the time they had 
gained this useless and undefended village, hundreds of their number lay 
wounded and dying in the snow. The carnage and slaughter this day in the 
enemy's ranks was terrific, resulting from a most stupid military blunder, 
but it atoned slightly for our losses previous thereto. The valley below us 
was dotted with pile after pile of enemy dead, the carnage here being almost 
equal to the terrific fighting later at Vistavka. When he discovered his 

137 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

mistake and useless sacrifice of men, and seeing it was hopeless to drive 
our troops from this position by his infantry, the enemy then resorted to 
more violent use of his artillery. Shells were raining into our position now 
by the thousands, but our artillery could not respond as it was completely 
outranged. By the process of attrition our little body of men was growing 
smaller day by day, when to cap the climax late that day a stray shell plunged 
into our Uttle hospital just as the medical officer, Ralph C. Powers, who 
had been heroically working with the dead and dying for days without 
relief and who refused to quit his post, was about to perform an operation 
on one of our mortally wounded comrades. This shell went through the 
walls of the building and through the operating room, passing outside where 
it exploded and flared back into the room. Four men were killed outright, 
including Sgt. Yates K. Rodgers and Corp. Milton Gottschalk, two of the 
staunchest and most heroic men of Company "A." Lieutenant Powers was 
mortally wounded and later died in the hospital at Shenkursk, where he 
aftd many of his brave comrades now lie buried in the shadow of a great 
cathedral. 

This was the beginning of the end for us in this position. The enemy 
was slowly but surely closing in on Shenkursk as evidenced by the following 
notation, made by one of our intelligence officers in Shenkursk, set forth 
verbatim : 

"January 22, Canadian artillery and platoon of infantry left of 
Nikolof skia at 6 :30 a. m., spent the day there establishing helio com- 
munication between church towers, here and there. All quiet there. 
At 10:00 a. m. one of the mounted Cossack troopers came madly gallop- 
ing from Sergisfskia saying that the Bolos were approaching from there 
and that he had been fired upon. He was terrified to death ; other 
arrivals verify this report. The defenses are not all manned and a 
patrol sent in that direction. They are sure out there in force right 
enough. The clans are rapidly gathering for the big drive for the 
prize, Shenkursk. Later — Orders from British Headquarters for troops 
at Ust Padenga to withdraw tonight. 10 :00 p. m. — There is a red 
glare in the sky in the direction of Ust Padenga and the flames of 

burning buildings are plain to be seen. There is a popping 

down there and the roar of artillery is clearly heard." 

That night, January 22nd, we withdrew from this shell-torn and flaming 
village, leaving behind one of our guns which the exhausted horses could 
not move. We did not abandon this position a moment too soon, for just 
as we had finished preparations for withdrawal an incendiary shell struck 
one of the main buildings of the village, and instantly the surrounding 
country was as bright as day. All that night, tired, exhausted and half- 
starved, we plodded along the frozen trails of the pitch black forest. The 
following morning we halted for the day at Shelosha, but late that day 
we received word to again withdraw to Spasskoe, a village about six versts 
from Shenkursk. Again we marched all night long, floundering through the 
snow and cold, reaching Spasskoe early that morning. On our march that 
night it was only by means of a bold and dangerous stroke that we succeeded 
in reaching Spasskoe. The ertemy had already gotten between us and our 
objective and in fact was occupying villages on both sides of the Vaga 

138 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

River, through one or the other of which we were compelled to pass. We 
finally decided that under the cover of darkness and in the confusion and 
many movements then on foot, we could possibly march straight up the 
river right between the villages, and those on one side would mistake us 
for others on the opposite bank. Our plan worked to perfection and we 
got through safely with only one shot being fired by some suspicious enemy 
sentry, but which did us no harm, and we continued silently on our way. 

For days now we had been fighting and marching, scarcely pausing for 
food and then only to force down a ration of frozen bully beef or piece 
of hard tack, and we expected here at least to gain a short breathing spell, 
but such was not fate's decree. About 4 :00 a. m. v/e finally "turned in," but 
within a couple of hours we were again busily occupied in surveying our 
positions and making our plans. About 7:30 a, m. Lieut. Mead and Capt. 
Ollie Mowatt, in command of the artillery, climbed into a church tower for 
observation, when to our surprise we could plainly see a long line of artillery 
moving along the Shenkursk road, and the surrounding villages alive with 
troops forming for the attack. Scarcely had we gotten our outposts into 
position when a shell crashed squarely over the village, and again the battle 
was on. All that day the battle raged, the artillery was now shelling Shen- 
kursk as well as our own position. The plains in front of us were swarming 
with artillery and cavalry, while- overhead hummed a lone airplane which 
had travelled about a hundred and twenty-five miles to aid us in our hopeless 
encounter, but all in vain. 

At 1:30 p. m. an enemy shell burst squarely on our single piece of 
artillery, putting it completely out of action, killing several men, seriously 
wounding Capt. Otto Odjard, as well as Capt. Mowatt, who later died from 
his wounds. While talking by telephone to our headquarters at Shenkursk, 
just as we were being notified to withdraw, a shell burst near headquarters, 
demolishing our telephone connections. Again assembling our men we once 
more took up our weary retreat, arriving that evening in Shenkursk, where, 
worn and completely exhausted, we flung ourselves on floors and every 
available place to rest for the coming siege, about to begin. 



139 



XVII 

The Retreat From Shenkursk 

Shenkursk Surrounded By Bolshevi'ki — Enemy Artillery Outranged 
Ours — British General At Beresnik Orders Retreat — Taking Hidden 
Trail We Escape — Shenkursk Battalion Of Russians Fails Us — 
Description Of Terrible March — Casting Away Their Shackletons 
— Resting At Yemska Gora — Making Stand At Shegovari — Night 
Sees Retreat Resumed — Cossacks Cover Rear — Holding Ill-Selected 
Vistavka — Toil, Vigilance And Valor Hold Village Many Days — 
Red Heavy Artillery Blows Vistavka To Splinters In March — 
Grand Assault Is Beaten Off For Two Days — Lucky Cossacks 
Smash In And Save Us — Heroic Deeds Performed — Vistavka Is 
Abandoned. 

After five days and nights of ceaseless fighting and marching, it is necessary 
to say that we were soon sleeping the sleep of utterly exhausted and worn 
out soldiers, but alas, our rest was soon to be disturbed and we were to 
take up the weary march once more. Immediately after our arrival within 
the gates of Shenkursk, the British High Command at once called a council 
of war to hastily decide what our next step should be. The situation 
brieflly stated was this: Within this position we had a large store of 
munitions, food, clothing, and other necessaries sufficient to last the garrison, 
including our Russian Allies, a period of sixty days. On the other hand, 
every available approach and trail leading into Shenkursk was held by the 
enemy, who could move about at will inasmuch as they were protected by 
the trackless forests on all sides, and thus would soon render it impossible 
for our far distant comrades in Archangel and elsewhere on the lines to 
bring through any relief or assistance. Furthermore, it was now the dead 
of the Arctic winter and three to four months must yet elapse before the 
block ice of the Vaga-Dvina would give way for our river gunboats and 
supply ships to reach us. 

Between our positions and Beresnik, our river base, more than a hundred 
miles distant, were but two occupied positions, the closest being Shegovari, 
forty-four miles in rear of us, with but two Russian platoons, and Kitsa, 
twenty miles further with but one platoon and a few Russian troops. There 
were hundreds of trails leading through the forests from town to town 
and it would be but a matter of days or even hours for the enemy to occupy 
these positions and then strike at Beresnik, thus cutting off not only our 
forces at Shenkursk but those at Toulgas far down the Dvina as well. 
Already he had begun destroying the lines of communication behind us. 

That afternoon at 3 :10 p. m. the last message from Beresnik arrived 
ordering us to withdraw if possible. While this message was coming over 
the wire and before our signal men had a chance to acknowledge it, the 
wires suddenly "went dead," shutting off our last hope of communication 

141 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

with the outside world. We later learned from a prisoner who was captured 
some days later that a strong raiding party had been dispatched to raid the 
town of Yemska Gora on the line and to cut the wires. Fortunately for us 
they started from their bivouac on a wrong trail which brought them to 
their objective several hours later, during which time the battle of Spasskoe 
had been fought and we had been forced to retire, all of which information 
reached Beresnik in time for the general in command there to wire back 
his order of withdrawal, just as the wires were being cut away. 

With this hopeless situation before us, and the certain possibility of a 
starvation siege eventually forcing us to surrender, the council decided that 
retreat we must if possible and without further delay. All the principal 
roads or trails were already in the hands of the enemy. However, there 
was a single, little used, winter trail leading straight back into the forest 
in rear of us which, with devious turns and windings, would finally bring 
us back to the river trail leading to Shegovari, about twenty miles further 
down the river. Mounted Cossacks were instantly dispatched along this 
trail and after several hours of hard riding returned with word that, due to 
the difficulty of travel and heavy snows, the enemy had not yet given serious 
consideration to this trail, and as a consequence was unoccupied by them. 

Without further delay English Headquarters immediately decided upon 
total evacuation of Shenkursk. Orders were at once issued that all equip- 
ment, supplies, rations, horses, and all else should be left just as it stood 
and each man to take on that perilous march only what he could carry. 
To attempt the destruction of Shenkursk by burning or other means would 
at once indicate to the enemy the movement on foot; therefore, all was 
to be left behind untouched and unharmed. Soon the messengers were 
rapidly moving to and fro through the streets of the village hastily rousing 
the slumbering troops, informing them of our latest orders. When we 
received the order we were too stunned to fully realize and appreciate all 
the circumstances and significance of it. Countless numbers of us openly 
cursed the order, for was it not a cowardly act and a breach of trust with 
our fallen comrades lying beneath the snow in the great cathedral yard 
who had fought so valiantly and well from Ust Padenga to Shenkursk in 
order to hold this all important position? However, cooler heads and 
reason soon prevailed and each quickly responded to the task of equipping 
himself for the coming march. 

Human greed often manifests itself under strange and unexpected cir- 
cumstances, and this black night of January 23, 1919, proved no exception 
to the rule. Here and there some comrade would throw away a prized 
possession to make more room for necessary food or clothing in his pack 
or pocket. Some other comrade would instantly grab it up and feverishly 
struggle to get it tied onto his pack or person, little realizing that long 
before the next thirty hours had passed he, too, would be gladly and 
willingly throwing away prize after prize into the snow and darkness of the 
forest. 

At midnight the artillery, preceded by mounted Cossacks, passed through 
the lane of barbed wire into the forests. The Shenkursk Battalion, which 

142 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

had been mobilized from the surrounding villages, was dispatched along 
the Kodima trail to keep the enemy from following too closely upon our 
heels. This latter maneuver was also a test of the loyalty of this battalion 
for there was a well defined suspicion that a large portion of them were 
at heart sympathizers of the Bolo cause. Our suspicions were shortly 
confirmed; very soon after leaving the city they encountered the enemy 
and after an exchange of a few shots two entire companies went over to 
the Bolo side, leaving nothing for the others to do but flee for their lives. 

Fortune was kind to us that night, however, and by 1:00 a. m. the 
infantry was under way. Company "A", which had borne the brunt of the 
fighting so many long, weary days, was again called upon with Company 
"C" to take up the rear guard, and so we set off into the blackness of the 
never ending forest. As we marched out of the city hundreds of the 
natives who had somehow gotten wind of this movement were also scurrying 
here and there in order to follow the retreating column. Others who were 
going to remain and face the entrance of the Bolos were equally delighted 
in hiding and disposing of their valuables and making away with the aban- 
doned rations and supplies. 

Hour after hour we floundered and struggled through the snow and 
bitter cold. The artillery and horses ahead of us had cut the trail into 
a network of holes, slides and dangerous pitfalls rendering our footing so 
uncertain and treacherous that the wonder is that we ever succeeded in 
regaining the river trail alive. Time after time that night one could hear 
some poor unfortunate with his heavy pack on his back fall with a sickening 
thud upon the packed trail, in many cases being so stunned and exhausted 
that it was only by violent shaking and often by striking some of the others 
in the face that they could be sufficiently aroused and forced to continue 
the march. 

At this time we were all wearing the Shackleton boot, a boot designed 
by Sir Ernest Shackleton of Antarctic fame, and who was one of the advisory 
staff in Archangel. This boot, which was warm and comfortable for one 
remaining stationary as when on sentry duty, was very impracticable and 
well nigh useless for marching, as the soles were of leather with the smooth 
side outermost, which added further to the difficulties of that awful night. 
Some of the men unable to longer continue the march cast away their boots 
and kept going in their stocking feet; soon others were following the 
example, with the result that on the following day many were suffering 
from severely frostbitten feet. 

The following morning, just as the dull daylight was beginning to appear 
through the snow-covered branches overhead, and when we were about 
fifteen versts well away from Shenkursk, the roar of cannon commenced 
far behind us. The enemy had not as yet discovered that we had abandoned 
Shenkursk and he was beginning bright and early the siege of Shenkursk. 
Though we were well out of range of his guns the boom of the artillery 
acted as an added incentive to each tired and weary soldier and with anxious 
eyes searching the impenetrable forests we quickened our step. 

14? 



^ THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

At 9 :00 a. m. we arrived at Yemska Gora on the main road from Shen- 
kursk, where an hour's halt was made. All the samovars in the village were 
at once put into commission and soon we were drinking strong draughts of 
boiling hot tea. Some were successful in getting chunks of black bread 
which they ravenously devoured. The writer was fortunate in locating an 
old villager who earlier in the winter had been attached to the company 
sledge transport and the old fellow brought forth some fishcakes to add to 
the meagre fare. These cakes were made by boiling or soaking the vile 
salt herring until it becomes a semi-pasty mass, after which it is mixed 
with the black bread dough and then baked, resulting in one of the most 
odoriferous viands ever devised by human hands and which therefore few, 
if any, of us had summoned up courage enough to consume. On this par- 
ticular morning, however, it required no courage at all and we devoured 
the pasty mass as though it were one of the choicest of viands. The entire 
period of the halt was consumed in eating and getting ready to continue 
the march. 

At 10:00 a. m. we again fell in and the weary march was resumed. The 
balance of the day was simply a repetition of the previous night with the 
exception that it was now daylight and the footing was more secure. At 
five o'clock that afternoon we arrived at Shegovari, where the little garrison 
of Company "C" and Company "D", under command of Lieut. Derham, 
was anxiously awaiting us, for after the attack of the preceding day, which 
is described in the following paragraph, they were fearful of the conse- 
quences in case they were compelled to continue holding the position through 
the night without reinforcements. 

Shortly after the drive had begun at Ust Padenga marauding parties 
of the enemy were reported far in our rear in the vicinity of Shegovari. 
On the night of January 21st some of the enemy, disguised as peasants, 
approached one of the sentries on guard at a lonely spot near the village 
and coldly butchered him with axes ; another had been taken prisoner, and 
with the daily reports of our casualties at Ust Padenga, the little garrison 
was justly apprehensive. On the morning of January 23rd a band of the 
enemy numbering some two hundred men emerged from the forest and had 
gained possession of the town before they were detected. Fortunately the 
garrison was quickly assembled, and by judicious use of machine guns 
and grenades quickly succeeded in repelling the attack and retaining posses- 
sion of the position, which thus kept the road clear for the troops retreating 
from Shenkursk. Such was the condition here upon our arrival. 

Immediately we at once set up our outposts and fortunately got our 
artillery into position, which was none too soon, for while we were still so 
engaged our Cossack patrols came galloping in to report that a great body 
of the enemy was advancing along the main road. Soon the advance patrols 
of the enemy appeared and our artillery immediately opened upon them. 
Seeing that we were thus prepared and probably assuming that we were 
going to make a stand in this position, the enemy retired to await reinforce- 
ments. All through the night we could see the flames of rockets and signal 
lights in surrounding villages showing them the enemy was losing no time 

144 






■•!>i ««;;.," " '■ ' 




I m 







f 1 



/ 



Subornya Cathedral 



ROZANSKEY 







-"-^'SJ^^IlSSlv^ 




^'^^^^: 





Building a Blockhouse 



U, S OFFICIAL PHOTO 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

in getting ready for an attack. Hour after hour our guns boomed away 
until daylight again broke to consolidate our various positions. 

Our position here was a very undesirable one from a military standpoint, 
due to the fact that the enemy could approach from most any direction 
under cover of the forest and river trails. Our next position was Kitsa, 
which was situated about twenty miles further down the river toward 
Beresnik, the single trail to which ran straight through the forests without 
a single house or dwelling the entire way. This would have been almost 
impossible to patrol, due to the scarcity of our numbers, consequently, it 
was decided to continue our retreat to this position. 

At 5 :00 p. m., under cover of darkness, we began assembling and once 
more plunged into the never-ending forest in full retreat, leaving Shegovari 
far behind. We left a small body of mounted Cossacks in the village to 
cover our retreat, but later that night we discovered a further reason for 
this delay here. At about eleven that night, as we were silently pushing 
along through the inky blackness of the forest, suddenly far to the south 
of us a brilliant flame commenced glowing against the sky, which rapidly 
increased in volume and intensity. We afterward learned that our Cossack 
friends had fired the village before departing in order that the enemy could 
not obtain further stores and supplies which we were compelled to abandon. 

At midnight of January 26th the exhausted column arrived in Vistavka, 
a position about six versts in advance from Kitsa, and we again made ready 
to defend this new position. 

The next day we made a hasty reconnaissance of the place and soon 
realized that of all the positions we had chosen, as later events conclusively 
proved, this was the most hopeless of all. Vistavka, itself, stood on a high 
bluff on the right bank of the Vaga. Immediately in front of us was the 
forest, to our left was the forest, and on the opposite bank of the river 
more forest. The river wound in and around at this point and at the larger 
bends were several villages — one about five versts straight across the river 
called Yeveevskaya — and another further in a direct line called Ust Suma. 
About six or seven versts to our rear was Kitsa and Igfnatevskaya lying 
on opposite sides of the river — Kitsa being the only one of all these villages 
with any kind of prepared defenses at all. However, we at once set to 
work stringing up barbed wire and trying to dig into the frozen snow and 
ground, which, however, proved adamant to our shovels and picks. To 
add further to the difficulty of this task the enemy snipers lying in wait 
in the woods would pick off our men, so that we finally contented ourselves 
with snow trenches, and thus began the defense of Vistavka, which lasted 
for about two months, during which time thousands upon thousands of shells 
were poured into the little village, and attack after attack was repulsed. 

Within two days after our occupation of this place the enemy had gotten 
his light artillery in place and with his observers posted in the trees of the 
surrounding forest he soon had our range, and all through the following 
month of February he continued his intermittent shelling and sniping. Night 
after night we could hear the ring of axes in the surrounding woods inform- 
ing us that the Bolo was establishing his defenses, but our numbers were 

145 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

so small that we could not send out patrols enough to prevent this. Our 
casualties during this period were comparatively light and with various 
reliefs by the Royal Scots, Kings Liverpools, "C" and "D" Companies, 
American Infantry, we held this place with success until the month of 
March. 

By constant shelling during the month of February the enemy had prac- 
tically reduced Vistavka to a mass of ruins. With no stoves or fire and a 
constant fare of frozen corned beef and hard tack, the morale of the troops 
was daily getting lower and lower, but still we grimly stuck to our guns. 

On the evening of March 3rd the Russian troops holding Yeveevskaya 
got possession of a supply of English rum, with the result that the entire 
garrison was soon engaged in a big celebration. The Bolo, quick to take 
advantage of any opportunity, staged a well-planned attack and within an 
hour they had possession of the town. Ust Suma had been abandoned 
almost a month prior to this time, which left Vistavka standing alone with 
the enemy practically occupying every available position surrounding us. 
As forward positions we now held Maximovskaya on the left bank and 
Vistavka on the right. 

The following day the enemy artillery, which had now 'been reinforced 
by six and nine-inch guns, opened up with renewed violence and for two 
days this continued, battering away every vestige of shelter remaining to us. 
On the afternoon of the fifth the barrage suddenly lifted to our artillery 
about two versts to our rear, and simultaneously therewith the woods and 
frozen river were swarming with wave after wave of the enemy coming 
forward to the attack. To the heroic defenders of the little garrison it 
looked as though at last the end had come, but with grim determination 
they quickly began pouring their hail of lead into the advancing waves. 
Attack after attack was repulsed, but nevertheless the enemy had succeeded 
in completely surrounding us. Once more he had cut away our wires leading 
to Kitsa and also held possession of the trails leading to that position. For 
forty-eight hours this awful situation continued — our rations were practically 
exhausted and our ammunition was running low. Headquarters at Kitsa 
had given us up for lost and were preparing a new line there to defend. Dur- 
ing the night, however, one of our runners succeeded in getting through with 
word of our dire plight. The following day the Kings Liverpools with other 
troops marched forth from Kitsa in an endeavor to cut their way through 
to our relief. The Bolo, however, had the trails and roads too well 
covered with machine guns and troops and quickly repulsed this attempt. 

Late that afternoon those in command at Kitsa decided to make another 
attempt to bring assistance to our hopeless position and at last ordered a 
mixed company of Russians and Cossacks to go forward in the attempt. 
After issuing an overdose of rum to all, the commander made a stirring 
address, calling upon them to do or die in behalf of their comrades in such 
great danger. The comrades in question consisted of a platoon of Russian 
machine gunners who were bravely fighting with the Americans in Vistavka. 
Eventually they became sufficiently enthusiastic and with a great display 
of ceremony they left Kitsa. As was to be expected, they at once started 

146 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

dfl the wrong trail, but as good fortune would have it this afterward proved 
the turning point of the day. This trail, unknown to them, led into a 
position in rear of the enemy and before they realized it they walked 
squarely into view of a battalion of the enemy located in a ravine on one 
of our flanks, who either did not see them approaching or mistakenly took 
them for more of their own number advancing. Quickly sensing the situa- 
tion, our Cossack Allies at once got their machine guns into position and 
before the Bolos realized it these machine guns were in action, mowing 
down file after file of their battalion. To counter attack was impossible 
for they would have to climb the ravine in the face of this hail of lead, 
and the only other way of escape was in the opposite direction across the 
river under direct fire from our artillery and machine guns. Suddenly, 
several of the enemy started running and inside of a minute the remainder 
of the battalion was fleeing in wild disorder, but it was like jumping from 
the frying pan into the fire, for as they retreated across the river our 
artillery and machine guns practically annihilated them. Shortly thereafter 
the Cossacks came marching through our lines where they were welcomed 
with open arms and again Vistavkawas saved. That night fresh supplies 
and ammunition were brought up and the little garrison was promised speedy 
relief. 

Our total numbers during this attack did not amount to more than four 
hundred men, including the Cossack machine gunners and Canadian artillery- 
men. We afterward learned that from four to five thousand of the 
enemy took part in this attack. 

The next day all was quiet and we began to breathe more easily, think- 
ing that perhaps the enemy at last had enough. Our hopes were soon to 
be rudely shattered, for during this lull the Bolo was busily occupied in 
bringing up more ammunition and fresh troops, and on the morning of the 
seventh he again began a terrific artillery preparation. As stated elsewhere 
on these pages, our guns did not have sufficient range to reach the enemy 
guns even had we been successful in locating them, so all we could do was 
to lie shivering in the snow behind logs, snow trenches and barbed wire, 
hopirtg against hope that the artillery would not annihilate us. 

The artillery bombardment continued for two days, continuing up to 
noon of March 9th, when the enemy again launched another attack. This 
time we were better prepared and, having gotten wind of the plan of attack, 
we again caught a great body of the infantry in a ravine waist deep in snow. 
We could plainly see and hear the Bolo commissars urging and driving 
their men forward to the attack, but there is a limit to all endurance and 
once again one or two men bolted and ran, and it was but a matter of 
minutes until all were fleeing in wild disorder. 

Space does not permit the enumeration of the splendid individual feats 
of valor performed by such men as Lieuts. McPhail of Company "A", and 
Burns of the Engineers, with their handful of men — nor the grim tenacity 
and devotion to duty of Sgts. Yarger, Rapp, Garbinski, Moore and Kenny, 
the last two of whom gave up their lives during the last days of their 
attacks. Even the cooks were called upon to do double duty and, led 

147 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

by "Red" Swadener, they would work all night long trying to prepare 
at least one warm meal for the exhausted men, the next day taking their 
places in the snow trenches with their rifles on their shoulders fighting 
bravely to the end. Then, too, there were the countless numbers of such 
men as Richey, Hutchinson, Kurowski, Retherford, Peyton, Russel, De 
Amicis, Cheney, and others who laid down their lives in this hopeless cause. 

The attack was not alone directed against the position of Vistavka, for 
on the opposite bank of the river the garrison at Maximovskaya was sub- 
jected to an attack of almost equal ferocity. The position there was sur- 
rounded by forests and the enemy could advance within several hundred 
yards without being observed. The defenders here, comprising Companies 
"F" and "A", bravely held on and inflicted terrific losses upon the enemy. 

It was during these terrible days that Lt. Dan Steel of Company "F" 
executed a daring and important patrol maneuver. This officer, who had 
long held the staff position of battalion adjutant, feeling that he could 
render more effective service to his comrades by being at the front, demanded 
a transfer from his staff position to duty with a line company, which transfer 
was finally reluctantly given — reluctantly because of the fact that he had 
virtually been the power behind the throne, or colonel's chair, of the 
Vaga River column. A few days later found him in the thick of the 
.fighting at Maximovskaya, and when a volunteer was needed for the above 
mentioned patrol he was the first to respond. The day in question he set 
forth in the direction of Yeveevskaya with a handful of men. The forests 
were fairly alive with enemy patrols, but in the face of all these odds he 
pushed steadily forward and all but reached the outskirts of the village 
itself where he obtained highly valuable information, mapped the road and 
trails through the forests, thus enabling the artillery to cover the same 
during the violent attacks of these first ten days of March. 

By five o'clock of that day the attack was finally repulsed and we still held 
our positions at Vistavka and Maximovskaya — but in Vistavka we were 
holding a mere shell of what had once been a prosperous and contented 
little village. The constant shelling coupled with attacks and counter attacks 
for months over the same ground had razed the village to the groundi 
leaving nothing but a shell-torn field and a few blackened ruins. It was 
useless to hold the place longer and consequently that night it was decided to 
abandon the position here and withdraw to a new line about three versts 
in advance of Kitsa. 

Under cover of darkness on the night of March 9th we abandoned the 
position at Vistavka, and as stated in the previous chapter, established a new 
line of defense along a trail and in the forests about three versts in advance 
of Kitsa. While our position at Vistavka was practically without protection, 
this position here was even worse. We were bivouacked in the open snow 
and woods where we could only dig down into the snow and pray that the 
Bolo artillery observers would be unable to locate us. Our prayers in this 
respect were answered, for this position was not squarely in the open as 
Vistavka was, and therefore not under the direct fire of his artillery. The 
platoons of "F" Company at Maximovskaya were brought up here to join 

148 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

the balance of their company in holding this position, "A" Company being 
relieved by_^'D'' Company and sent across the river to Ignatovskaya. "F" 
Company alternated with platoons of the Royal Scots in this position in 
the woods for the balance of the month, during which there was constant 
shelling and sniping but with few casualties among our ranks. The latter 
part of March "F" Company was relieved for a short time, but the first 
week in April were again sent back to the Kitsa position. By this time the 
spring thaws were setting in and the snow began disappearing. Our plans 
now were to hold these positions at Kitsa and Maximovskaya until the river 
ice began to move out and then burn all behind us and make a speedy 
getaway, but how to do this and not reveal our plans to the enemy a few 
hundred yards across No Man's Land was the problem. 



i4g 



XVIII 

Defense of Pinega 

KuLiKOFF And Smelkoff Lead Heavy Force Against Pinega — Reinforce- 
ments Hastened Up To Pinega— Reds Win Early Victories Against 
Small Force Of Defenders— Value Of Pinega Area— Despera'Te 
Game Of Bluffing — Captain Akutin Reorganizes White Guards — 
Russians Fought Well In Many Engagements — Defensive Positions 
Hold Against Heavy Red Attack — Voluntary Draft Of Russians 
Of Pinega Area — American Troops "G" And "M" Made Shining 
Page — Military- Political Relations Eminently Successful. 

The flying column of Americans up the Pinega River in late fall we 
remember retired to Pinega in face of a surprisingly large force. The 
commander of the Bolshevik Northern Army had determined to make use 
of the winter roads across the forests to send guns and ammunition and 
food and supplies to the area in the upper valley of the Pinega. He would 
jolt the Allies in January with five pieces of artillery, two 75's and three 
pom poms, brought up from Kotlas where their stores had been taken in 
the fall retreat before the Allies. One of his prominent commanders, 
Smelkoff", who had fought on the railroad in the fall, went over to the distant 
Pinega front to assist a rising young local commander, Kulikoff. These two 
ambitious soldiers of fortune had both been natives and bad actors of the 
Pinega Valley, one being a noted horse thief of the old Czar's day. 

With food, new uniforms and rifles and common and lots of nice crisp 
Bolshevik money and with boastful stories of how they had whipped the 
invading foreigners on other fields in the fall and with invective against 
the invaders these leaders soon excited quite a large following of fighting 
men from the numerous villages. With growing power they rounded up 
unwilling men and drafted them into the Red Army just as they had done 
so often before in other parts of Russia if we may believe the statements 
of wounded men and prisoners and deserters. Down the valley with the 
handful of Americans and Russian White Guards there came an ever 
increasing tide of anti-Bolshevists looking to Pinega for safety. 

The Russian local government of Pinega, though somewhat pinkish, did 
not want war in the area and appealed to the Archangel state government 
for military aid to hold the Reds off. Captain Conway reported to Archangel 
G. H. Q. that the population was very nervous and that with his small force 
of one hundred men and the three hundred undisciplined volunteer White 
Guards he was in a tight place. Consequently, it was decided to send a com- 
pany of Americans to relieve the half company there and at the same 
time to send an experienced ex-staflf officer of the old Russian Army to 
Pinega with a staff of newly trained Russian officers to serve with the 
American officer commanding the area and raise and discipline all the local 
White Guards possible. 

151 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

Accordingly, Capt. Moore with "M" Company was ordered to relieve 
the Americans at Pinega, and Capt. Akutin by the Russian general com- 
manding the North Russian Army was ordered to Pinega for the mission 
already explained. Two pieces of field artillery with newly trained Russian 
personnel were to go up and supplies and ammunition were to be rushed up 
the valley. 

On December 18th the half company of American troops set off for the 
march to the city of Pinega. The story of that 207-verst march of Christmas 
week, when the days were shortest and the weather severe, will be told 
elsewhere. Before they reached the city, which was desperately threatened, 
the fears of the defenders of Pinega had been all but realized. The Reds 
in great strength moved on the flank of the White Guards, surrounded 
them at Visakagorka and dispersed them into the woods. If they had only 
known it they might have immediately besieged the city of Pinega. But 
they respected the American force and proceeded carefully as far as Tru- 
fanagora. 

On the very day of this disaster to the White Guards the Americans 
on the road were travelling the last forty-six versts rapidly by sleigh. News 
of this reinforcing column reached the Reds and no doubt slowed up their 
advance. They began fortifying the important Trufanagora, which was 
the point where the old government roads and telegraph lines from Mezen 
and Karpogora united for the Pinega-Archangel line. 

Reference to the war map will show that this Pinega area gave all the 
advantages of strategy to the Red commander, whose rapid advance down 
the valley with the approach of winter had taken the Archangel strategists 
by surprise. His position at Trufanagora not only gave him control of 
the Mezen road and cut off the meats from Mezen and the sending of flour 
and medical supplies to Mezen and Petchura, in which area an officer of the 
Russian Northern Army was opposing the local Red Guards, but it also 
gave him a position that made of the line of communication to our rear a 
veritable eighty-mile front. 

In our rear on the line of communication were the villages of Leunova, 
Ostrov and Kuzomen, which were scowlingly pro-Bolshevik. One of the 
commanders, Kulikoff, the bandit, hailed from Kuzomen. He was in con- 
stant touch with this area. When the winter trails were frozen more 
solidly he would try to lead a column through the forest to cut the line. 

Now began a struggle to keep the lower valley from going over to the 
Bolsheviki while we were fighting the Red Guards above the city. It was 
a desperate game. We must beat them at bluffing till our Russian forces 
were raised and we must get the confidence of the local governments. 

Half the new American force was sent under Lt. Stoner to occupy 
the Soyla area on the line of communication, which seemed most in danger 
of being attacked. The men of this area, and the women and children, too, 
for that matter, were soon won to the cordial support of the Americans. 
Treacherous Yural was kept under surveillance and later subsided and fell 
into line with Pinega, which was considerably more than fifty per cent 
White, in spite of the fact that her mayor was a former Red. 

U2 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

The rout of the White Guards at Visakagorka had not been as bad as 
appeared at first. The White Guards had fought up their ammunition and 
then under the instructions of their fiery Polish leader, Mozalevski, had 
melted into the forest and reassembled many versts to the rear and gone 
into the half-fortified village of Peligorskaya. Here the White Guards 
were taken in hand by their new commander, Capt. Akutin, and reorganized 
into fighting units, taking name from the villages whence they came. Thus 
the Trufanagora Company of White Guards rallied about a leader who 
stimulated them to drill for the fight to regain their own village from the 
Reds who at that very moment were compelling their Trufanagora women 
to draw water and bake bread and dig trenches for the triumphant and 
boastful Red Guards. 

This was an intense little civil war. No mercy and no quarter. The 
Reds inflamed their volunteers and conscripts against the invading Americans 
and the Whites. The White Guards gritted their teeth at the looting Reds 
and proudly accepted their new commander's motto : White Guards for 
the front; Americans for the city and the lines of communication. 

And this was good. During the nine weeks of this successful defense 
of the city the Russian White Guards stood all the casualties, and they 
were heavy. Not an American soldier was hit. Yankee doughboys sup- 
ported the artillery and stood in reserves and manned blockhouses but not 
one was wounded. Three hospitals were filled with the wounded White 
Guards. American soldiers in platoon strength or less were seen constantly 
on the move from one threatened spot to another, but always, by fate it 
seemed, it was the Russian ally who was attacked or took the assaulting 
line in making our advances on the enemy. 

On January 8th arid again on January 29th and 30th we tried the enemy's 
works at Ust Pocha. Both times we took Priluk and Zapocha but were 
held with great losses before Ust Pocha. At the first attempt Pochezero 
was taken in a flank attack by the Soyla Lake two-company outguard of 
Soyla. But this emboldened the Reds to try the winter trail also. Oo 
January 24th they nearly took our position. 

News of the Red successes at Shenkursk reached the Pinega Valley. 
We knew the Reds were now about to strike directly at the city. Capt. 
Akutin's volunteer force, although but one- third the size of the enemy, was 
ready to beat the Reds to the attack. With two platoons of Americans and 
seven hundred White Guards the American commander moved against the 
advancing Reds. Two other platoons of Americans were on the line of 
communications and one at Soyla Lake ready for counter-attack. Only 
one platoon remained in Pinega. It was a ticklish situation, for the Red 
agitators had raised their heads again and an officer had been assassinated 
in a nearby village. The mayor was boarding in the American guardhouse 
and stern retaliation had been meted out to the Red spies. 

The Reds stopped our force after we had pushed them back into their 
fortifications and we had to retire to Peligora, where barbed wire, barricades, 
trenches and fortified log houses had been prepared for this rather expected 
last stand before the city of Pinega. For weeks it had looked dubious 

153 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

for the city. Enemy artillery would empty the city of inhabitants, although 
his infantry would find it difficult to penetrate the wire and other fortifica- 
tions erected by the Americans and Russians under the able direction of a 
British officer, Lieut. Augustine of a Canadian engineer unit. Think of 
chopping holes in the ice and frozen ground, pouring in water and freezing 
posts in for wire supports ! Then came the unexpected. After six days 
of steady fighting which added many occupants to our hospital and heavy 
losses to the enemy, he suddenly retreated one night, burning the village 
of Priluk which we had twice used as field base for our attack on him. 

From Pinega we looked at the faint smoke column across the forest deep 
with snow and breathed easier than we had for many anxious weeks. 
Our pursuing forces came back with forty loads of enemy supplies they left 
behind in the various villages we had captured from his forces. Why? 
Was it operations in his rear of our forces from Soyla, or the American 
platoon that worried his flank near his artillery, or Shaponsnikoff in the 
Mezen area threatening his flank, or was it a false story of the arrival of 
the forces of Kolchak at Kotlas in his rear? Americans here at Pinega, 
like the vastly more desperate and shattered American forces on the Vaga 
and at Kodish at the same time, had seen their fate impending and then 
seen the Reds unaccountably withhold the final blow. 

The withdrawal of the Reds to their stronghold at Trufanagora in the 
second week in February disappointed their sympathizers in Pinega and the 
Red Leunova area, and from that time on the occupation of the Pinega 
Valley by the Americans was marked by the cordial co-operation of the whole 
area. During the critical time when the Reds stood almost at the gates of 
the city, the Pinega government had yielded to the demands of the volunteer 
troops that all citizens be drafted for military service. This was done even 
before the Archangel authorities put its decree forth. Every male citizen 
between ages of eighteen and forty-five was drafted, called for examination 
and assigned to recruit drill or to service of supply or transportation. 
There was enthusiastic response of the people. 

The square opposite the cathedral resounded daily to the Russki recruit 
sergeant's commands and American platoons drilling, too, for effect on the 
Russians, saw the strange new way of turning from line to column and 
heard with mingled respect and amusement the weird marching song of 
the Russian soldier. And one day six hundred of those recruits, in obedience 
to order from Archangel, went off by sleigh to Kholmogora to be outfitted 
and assigned to units of the new army of the Archangel Republic. Among 
these recruits was a young man, heir-apparent to the million roubles of 
the old merchant prince of Pinega, whose mansion was occupier! by the 
Americans for command headquarters and billets for all the Aii^erican 
officers engaged in the defense of the city. This young man had tried 
in the old Russian way to evade the local government official's draft. He 
had tried again at Capt. Akutin's headquarters to be exempted but that 
democratic officer, who understood the real meaning of the revolution to 
the Russian people and who had their confidence, would not forfeit it by 
favoring the rich man's son. And when he came to American headquarters 

154 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

to argue that he was needed more in the officers' training camp at Archangel 
than in the ranks of recruits, he was told that revolutionary Russia would 
surely recognize his merit and give him a chance if he displayed marked 
ability along military lines, and wished good luck. He drilled in the ranks. 
And Pinega saw it. 

The Americans had finished their mission in Pinega. In place of the 
three hundred dispirited White Guards was a well trained regiment of local 
Russian troops which, together with recruits, numbered over two thousand. 
Under the instruction of Lieut. Wright of "M" Company, who had been 
trained as an American machine gun officer, the at first half-hearted 
Russians had developed an eight-gun machine gun unit of fine spirit, which 
later distinguished itself in action, standing between the city and the 
Bolsheviks in March when the Americans had left to fight on another 
front. Also under the instruction of a veteran Russian artillery officer 
the two field-pieces, Russian 75's, had been manned largely by peasant 
volunteers who had served in the old Russian artillery units. In addition, 
a scouting unit had been developed by a former soldier who had been a 
regimental scout under the old Russian Government. Pinega was quiet 
and able to defend itself. 

Compared with the winter story of wonderful stamina in enduring 
hardships at Shenkursk and Kodish and the sanguine fighting of those 
fronts, this defense of Pinega looks tame. Between the lines of the story 
must be read the things that made this a shining page that shows the marked 
ability of Americans to secure the co-operation of the Russian local govern- 
ment in service of supply and transportation and billeting and even in taking 
up arms and assuming the burdens of fighting their own battles. 

Those local companies of well-trained troops were not semi-British but 
truly Russian. They never failed their dobra Amerikanski soldats, whose 
close order drill on the streets of Pinega was a source of inspiration to the 
Russian recruits. 

Furthermore, let it be said that the faithful representation of American 
ideals of manhood and square deal and democratic courtesy, here as on 
other fronts, but here in particular, won the confidence of the at first sus- 
picious and pinkish-white government. Our American soldiers' conduct never 
brought a complaint to the command headquarters. They secured the 
affectionate support of the people of the Pinega Valley. Never was any 
danger of an enemy raiding force surprising the American lieutenant, 
sergeant or corporal whose detachment was miles and miles from help. 
The natives would ride a pony miles in the dark to give information to 
the Americans and be gratified with his thanks and cigarettes. 

Freely the Pinega Russians for weeks and weeks provided sleighs and 
billets and trench-building details and so forth without expecting pay. An 
arrogant British officer travelling with a pocket full of imprest money could 
not command the service that was freely offered an American soldier. The 
doughboy early learned to respect their rude homes and customs. He did 
not laugh at their oddities but spared their sensitive feelings. He shook 
hands a dozen times heartily if necessary in saying dasvedania, and left 

155 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

the Russian secure in his own self-respect and fast friend of the American 
officer or soldier. 

For his remarkable success in handling the ticklish political situation in 
face of overwhelming military disadvantages, and also in rallying and put- 
ting morale into the White Guard units of the Pinega area, during those 
nine desperate weeks, the American officer commanding the Pinega forces, 
Captain Joel R. Moore, was thanked in person by General Maroushevsky, 
Russian G. H. Q., who awarded him and several officers and men of "M" 
and "G" Russian military decorations. And General Ironside sent a per- 
sonal note, prized almost as highly as an official citation, which the editors 
beg the indulgence here of presenting merely for the information of the 

readers : 

Archangel, March 18, 191». 
My Dear Moore: 

I want to thank you for all the hard work you did when in command 
of the Pinega area. You had many dealings with the Russians, and 
organized their defense with great care and success. 

All the reports I have received from the Russian authorities express 
the fact that you dealt with them sympathetically under many difficult 
circumstances. 

As you probably found, responsibility at such a distance from head- 
quarters is difficult to bear, even for an experienced soldier, and I think 
you carried out your duties as Commander with great credit. 

I am especially pleased with the manner in which you have looked after 
your men, which is often forgotten by the non-professional soldier. In 
such conditions as those prevailing in Russia, unless the greatest care is 
taken of the men, they lose health and heart and are consequently no 
good for the job for which they are here. 

Believe me yours very sincerely, 

(Signed) EDMOND IRONSIDE, 

Major-General. 
When the Americans left the Pinega sector of defense in March, they 
carried with them the good wishes of the citizens and the Russian soldiers 
of that area. The writer travelled alone the full length of the lower Pinega 
Valley after his troops had passed through, finding everywhere the only 
word necessary to gain accommodations and service was the simple sentence 
uttered in broken Russian, Yah Amerikanski Kapitan, Kommandant Pinega. 
The American soldiers, hastening Archangel-ward so as to be ready for 
stern service on another hard-beset front, found themselves aided and assisted 
cheerfully by the Pinega Valley peasants who were grateful for the defense 
of their area in the desperate winter campaign. 

During those ticklish weeks of Bolshevik pressure of greatly superior 
numbers constantly threatening to besiege Pinega, and of a poHtical propa- 
ganda which was hard to offset, the Americans held on optimistically. If 
they had made a single false step politically or if their White Guards had 
lost their morale they would have had a more exciting and desperate time 
than they did have in the defense of Pinega. 



116 



XIX 

The Land And The People 

Archangel Area — Occupations Of Peopus — Schools — Church— Dress — In 
Peasant Homes — Great Masonry Stovei — Best Bed In House On 
Stove — ^Washing Cix)thes In River Below Zero — Steaming Bath 
House — Festivals — Honesty Of Peasants. 

To the doughboy penetrating rapidly into the interior of North Russia* 
whether by railroad or by barge or by more slow-going cart transport, his 
first impression was that of an endless expanse of forest and swamp with 
here and there an area of higher land. One of them said that the state of 
Archangel was 700 miles long by 350 wide and as tall as the 50-foot pine 
trees that cover it. Winding up the broad deep rivers he passed numerous 
villages with patches of clearings surrounding the villages, and where fish- 
ing nets, or piles of wood, numerous hay stacks and cows, and occasionally 
a richer area where high drying-racks held the flax, told him that the people 
were occupied chiefly in fishing, trapping, wood-cutting, flax raising, small 
dairying, and raising of limited amounts of grain and vegetables. He was to 
learn later that this north country raised all kinds of garden and field prod- 
ucts during the short but hot and perpetually daylight summer. 

Between villages the forest was broken only by the hunter or the wood- 
chopper or the haymaker's trails. The barge might pass along beside tower- 
ing bluffs or pass by long sandy flats. Never a lone peasant's house on the 
trail was seeil. They lived in villages. Few were the improved roads. The 
Seletskoe-Kodish-Plesetskaya-Petrograd highway on which our troops 
fought so long was not much of a road. These roads ran from village to 
village through the pine woods, crossing streams and wide rivers by wooden 
bridges and crossing swamps, where it was too much to circuit them, by cor- 
duroy. North Russia's rich soil areas, her rich ores, her timber, her dairy- 
ing possibilities have been held back by the lack of roads. The soldier saw 
a people struggling with nature as he had heard of his grandfathers strug- 
gling in pioneer days in America. 

To many people, the mention of North Russia brings vision of wonderful 
furs in great quantity. In normal times such visions would not be far 
wrong. But under the conditions following the assumption of central con- 
trol by the Bolsheviks and the over-running of large sections of the north 
country by their ravenous troops, few furs have been brought to market in 
the ordinary places. In order to find the fur-catches of the winters of 1917, 
1918 and 1919 before the peaceful security of the settled sections of Russia 
has been restored, it will be necessary to travel by unusual routes into the 
country far to the northeast of Archangel — into the Mezen and Pechura 
districts. There will be found fur-clad and half-starved tribes cut off from 
their usual avenues of trade and hoarding their catches of three seasons while 
they wonder how long it will be until someone opens the way for the allevia- 

157 



^ THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

tion of their misery. Information travels with amazing speed among these 
simple people, and they will run knowingly no risk of having their only 
wealth seized without recompense while en route to the distant markets. 
The Bolshevik forces have been holding a section of the usual road to 
Pinega and Archangel, and these fur-gathering tribes are wise and stubborn 
even while slowly dying. They absolutely lack medicine and surgical assist- 
ance, and certain food ingredients and small conveniences to which they 
had become accustomed through their contact with more settled peoples 
during the last half-century. 

For those Americans in whose minds Russia is represented largely by a 
red blank it would mean an education of a sort to see the passage of the 
four seasons, the customs and life of the people, and the scenery and build- 
ings in any considerable section of Russia. 

In the north, the division of the year into seasons is rather uncertain 
from year to year. Roughly, the summertime may be considered to last 
from May 25th to September 1st, the rainy season until the freeze-up in 
late November, the steady winter from early December until early April, 
and the thaw-season or spring to fill out the cycle until late May. The sum- 
mer may break into the rainy season in August, and the big freeze may come 
very early or very late. The winter may be extreme, variable or steady, the 
latter mood being most comfortable ; and the thaw season may be short and 
decisive or a lingering discouraging clasp on the garments of winter. Sum- 
mers have been known to be very hot and free from rain, and they have been 
known to be very cloudy and chilly. Indeed, twelve hours of cloud in that 
northern latitude will reduce the temperature very uncomfortably. The 
woodsmen and peasants can foretell quite accurately some weeks ahead when 
the main changes are due, which is of great help to the stranger as well as to 
themselves. 

A little inquiry by American officers and soldiers brought out the informa- 
tion that the great area lying east, south and west of Archangel city has 
been gradually settled during four hundred years by several types of people, 
most of them Russians in the sense in which Americans use the word, but 
most of them lacking a sense of national responsibility. Throughout this 
long time, people have settled along the rivers and lake^ as natural avenues 
of transportation. They sought a measure of independence and undisturbed 
and primitive comfort. Such they found in this rather isolated country be- 
cause it offered good hunting and fishing, fertile land with plenty of wood, 
little possibility of direct supervision or control by the government, refuge 
from political or civil punishment, few or no taxes, escape from feudalism 
or from hard industrial conditions, and — more recently — grants by the gov- 
ernment of free land with forestry privileges to settlers. 

Notwithstanding all this, the Government of Archangel State, with its 
hundreds of thousands of square miles, has never been self-supporting, but 
has had to draw on natural resources in various ways for its support. This 
has been done so that there is as yet not noticeable depletion, and the people 
have remained so nearly satisfied — until recently aroused by other inflam- 
matory events — that it is safe to say that no other larger section of the 

158 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

Russian Empire has been so free from violence, oppression and revolution 
as has the North. 

It has been so difficult to visit this northern region in detail that knowl- 
edge of it has been scant and meagre. Although many reports have been 
forwarded by United States agents to various departments of their gov- 
ernment ever since Russia began to disintegrate, such was the lack of liason 
between departments, and so great the disinclination to take advantage of 
the information thus accumulated, that when the small body of American 
troops was surprised by orders to proceed to North Russia there was no 
compilation of information concerning their theatre of operations available 
for them. An amusing error was actually made in the War Department's 
ordering a high American officer to proceed to Archangel via Vladivostok, 
which as a cursory glance at the map of the world would discover, is at the 
far eastern, vostok means eastern, edge of Siberia, thousands of miles from 
Archangel. And similar stories were told by British officers who were 
ordered by their War Office to report to Archangel by strange routes. Eng- 
land, who has lived almost next door to North Russia throughout her his- 
tory, and who established in the 16th century the first trading post known 
in that country, seems to have been in similar difficulties. The detailed in- 
formation regarding the roads, trails and villages of the north country 
which filtered down as far as the English officers who controlled the various 
field operations of the Expedition turned out to be nil or erroneous. Thereby 
hang many tales which will be told over and over wherever veterans of 
that campaign are to be found. 

The lack of transportation within this great hinterland of Archangel, 
as can be verified by any doughboy who marched and rassled his supplies 
into the interior, is an immediate reason for the comparative non-develop- 
ment of this region. It has not been so many years since the first railroad 
was run from central Russia to Archangel. At first a narrow-gauge line, 
it was widened to the full five-foot standard Russian gauge after the begin- 
ning of the great war. It is a single-track road with half-mile sidings 
at intervals of about seven miles. At these sidings are great piles of wood 
for the locomotives, and at some of them are water-tanks. While this rail- 
road is used during the entire year, it suffers the disadvantage of having 
its northern terminal port closed by ice during the winter. After the open- 
ing of the great war a parallel line was built from Petrograd north to 
Murmansk, a much longer line through more unsettled region but having the 
advantage of a northern port terminal open the year around. These two 
lines are so far apart as to have no present relation to each other except 
through the problem of getting suppHes into central Russia from the north. 
They are unconnected throughout their entire length. 

Similarly, there is a paucity of wagon-roads in the Archangel district, and 
those that are passable in the summer are many miles apart, with infrequent 
cross-roads. Roads which are good for "narrow-gauge" Russian sleds in 
the winter when frozen and packed with several feet of snow, are often 
impassable even on foot in the summer. And dirt or corduroy roads which 
are good in dry summer or frozen winter are impassable or hub-deep in 

159 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

mud in the spring and in the fall rainy season. For verification ask any 
"H" company man who pulled his army field shoes out of the sticky soil 
of the Onega Valley mile after mile in the fall of 1918 while pressing the 
Bolsheviki southward. Good roads are possible in North Russia, but no one 
will ever build them until industrial development demands them or the 
area becomes thickly populated; that is, disregarding the possibility of future 
road-building for military operations. Military roads have, as we know, 
been built many times in advance of any economic demand, and have later 
become valuable aids in developing the adjacent country. 

Another reason for the non-development of the north country in the past 
is the lack of available labor-supply. People are widely scattered. The 
majority of the industrious ones are on their own farms, and of the re- 
mainder the number available for the industries of any locality is small. 
Added to this condition is a very noticeable disinclination on the part of 
everybody toward over-exertion at the behest of others; coupled with a 
responsiveness to holidays that is incomprehensible to Americans who believe 
in making time into money. While the excessive proportion of holidays in 
the Russian calendar is deprecated by the more far-sighted and educated 
among the Russians, there is no hesitation on that score noticeable among 
the bulk of the people. Holidays are holy days and not to be neglected. 
Consequently the supply of labor for hire is not satisfactory from the em- 
ployer's standpoint, because it is not only small but unsteady. The Russian 
workman is faithful enough when treated understandingly. But if allow- 
ance is not made beforehand for his limitations and his customs, those who 
deal with him will be sorely disappointed. 

It is said that there are upwards of seventy regular holidays, most of 
them of church origin, aside from Sundays; and in addition, holidays by 
proclamation are not infrequent. Some holidays last three days and some 
holiday seasons — notably the week before Lent — are celebrated in a different 
village of a group each day. The villagers in all perform only the necessary 
work each day and flock in the afternoon and evenings to the particular 
village which is acting as host and entertainment center for that day. It is 
all very pleasant, but it is no life for the solid business man or the indus- 
trious laborer. Fortunately the agricultural and forestry areas of the 
north, of which this passage is written, yield a comfortable, primitive living 
to these hardy people without constant work. The needs of modern indus- 
try as we understand it, have not entered to cause confusion in their social 
structure. The sole result has been to delay the development of resources 
and industry by deterring the application of capital and entrepreneurship 
on any large scale. 

Before the war the English had active interest in flax and timber and 
some general trading, and the Germans flooded the North with merchandise, 
but these activities were more in the nature of utilizing the opportunities 
created by the needs of the scattered population than of developing rapidly 
a great country. 

Soldiers in Archangel saw American flour being unloaded from British 
ships in Archangel and sliding down the planks from the unloading quay 

160 




Archangel Girls Filling Xmas Stockings 



S OFFICIAL PHOTO 




}'. M. C. A. Rest Room, Archangel 



U S OFFICIAL PHOTO 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIK! 

into the Russian boats. And at the other side they saw Russian bales of 
flax being hoisted up into the ship for transport to England. England was 
energetically supplying flour and food and other supplies for an army of 
25,000 anti-Bolsheviki and aid to a civil population of several hundred 
thousand inhabitants and refugees in the North Russian area. This taking 
of the little stores of flax and lumber and furs that were left in the country 
by the English seemed to the suspicious anti-British of Russia and Amer- 
ica to be corroboration of the allegations of commercial purpose of the 
expedition, though to the pinched population of England to let those sup- 
plies of flour and fat and sugar leave England for Russia meant hardship. 
In all fairness we can only say that Russia was getting more than England 
in the exchange. 

Outside of the cities in the life and customs of the people exists a broad 
simplicity which is unlike the social atmosphere of most of the districts of 
rural America. Persons, however, who are acquainted with the rural dis- 
tricts of Norway and Sweden feel quite at home in the atmosphere of the 
North Russian village life. 

The villages are composed of the houses of the small farmers who till 
the surrounding land, together with church, school, store, and grain and 
flax barns. Except for a few new villages along the railways, all are to be 
found along some watercourse navigable at least for small barges. For the 
waterways are the first, and for a long time the only avenues of communica- 
tion and trade. In the winter they make the very best roadways for sleds. 
Wherever there was a great deal of open farm land along a river several of 
these village farm centers grew up in close proximity. The villages in such 
a group often combine for convenience, in local government, trading, and 
support of churches and schools. The majority of the villagers belong to 
a few large family groups which have grown in that community for genera- 
tions and give it an enviable permanence and stability. 

Family groups are represented in the councils of the community by their 
recognized heads, usually active old men. In these later troublous times, 
when so many of the men have disappeared in the maelstrom of the European 
war or are engaged in the present civil strife, women are quite naturally 
the acting heads of many families; and the result has led some observers 
to conclude that the women have better heads for business and better muscles 
for farming than have the men. It is certain that in some communities the 
women outshine in those respects the men who still remain. The same cotm- 
cil of family heads which guides the local affairs of each village, or group 
of villages, also attends through a committee to the affairs of the local co- 
operative store society which exists for trading purposes and acts in con- 
junction with the central society of Archangel. Each little local store has 
a vigilant keeper now frequently some capable young widow, who has no 
children old enough to help her to till some of the strips of land. 

The election and the duties of the headman have been dealt with here- 
tofore. His word is law and the soldiers came to know that the proper 
way to get things was to go through the starosta. In every village is a 
teacher, more or less trained. Each child is compelled to attend three years. 

161 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

If desirous he may go to high schools of liberal arts and science and tech- 
nical scope, seminaries and monastic schools. 

Of course, some children escape school, but not many, and the number 
of absolute illiterates under middle age who have been raised in North 
Russia is comparatively small. The writer well recalls that peasants seldom 
failed to promptly sign their names to receipts. Around our bulletin boards 
men in Russian camp constantly stood reading. One of the requests from 
the White Guards was for Archangel newspapers. One of the pleasantest 
winter evenings spent in North Russia was at the time of a teachers' asso- 
ciation meeting in the Pinega Valley. And one of the cleanest and busiest 
school-rooms ever visited was one of those little village schools. To be 
sure the people were limited in their education and way behind the times 
in their schools but they were eager to get on. 

Also, in every small center of population there is a Russian State Church. 
In America we have been accustomed to call these Greek Catholic Churches, 
but they are not. The ritual and creed are admittedly rather similar, but 
the church government, the architecture, the sacred pictures and symbols, 
and the cross, are all thoroughly Russian. Until the revolution, the Czar 
was the State head of the Church, and the Ecclesiastical head was appointed 
by him. In the North at present whatever aid was extended in times past 
from the government to the churches — and to the schools as well — is looked 
for from the Provisional Government at Archangel ; and under the circum- 
stances is very meagre if not lacking altogether for long periods. The vil- 
lagers do not close the churches or schools for such a minor reason as that, 
however. They feed and clothe the teacher and heat the church and the 
school. The priest works his small farm like the rest of them — that is, if 
he is a "good" priest. If he is not a "good" priest he charges heavily for 
special services, christenings, weddings or funerals, and begs or demands 
more for himself than the villagers think they can afford (and they afford 
a great deal, for the villagers are very devout and by training very long- 
suffering), and the next year finds himself politely kicked upstairs to another 
charge in a larger community which the villagers quite logically believe will 
better be able to support his demands. Such an affair is managed with the 
utmost finesse. 

Within the family all share in the work — and the play. The grown men 
do the hunting, fishing, felling of timber, building, hauling, and part of the 
planting and harvesting. The women, boys and girls do a great deal toward 
caring for the live-stock, and much of the work in the field. They also do 
some of the hauling and much of the sawing and splitting of wood for the 
stoves of the house, besides all of the housework and the spinning, knitting, 
weaving and making of clothing. The boys' specialty during the winter 
evenings often is the construction of fishnets of various sized meshes, and 
the making of baskets, which they do beautifully. 

On Sundays and holidays, even in these times of hardship, the native 
dress of the northern people is seen in much of its former interesting beauty. 
The women and girls in full skirts, white, red or yellow waists with laced 
bodices of darker color, fancy head-cloths and startling shawls, tempt the 

162 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIK I 

stares of the foreigner as they pass him on their way to church or to a dance. 
The men usually content themselves with their cleanest breeches, a pair of 
high boots of beautiful leather, an embroidered blouse buttoning over the 
heart, a broad belt, and a woolly angora cap without a visor. Suspenders 
and corsets are quite absent. 

On week-days and at work the dress of the North Russian peasant is, 
after five years of wartime, rather a nondescript collection of garments, 
often pitiful. In the winter the clothing problem is somewhat simplified 
because the four items of apparel which are customary and common to all 
for out-of-doors wear are made so durably that they last for years, and 
when worn out are replaced by others made right in the home. They are 
the padded over-coat of coarse cloth or light skins, the valinka of felt or 
the long boot of fur, the parki — a fur great coat without front opening and 
with head-covering attached, and the heavy knitted or fur mitten. In sev- 
eral of the views shown in this volume these different articles of dress may 
be seen, some of them on the heads, backs, hands and feet of the American 
soldiers. 

What American soldier who spent days and days in those Russian log 
houses does not remember that in the average house there is little furniture. 
The walls, floors, benches and tables are as a rule kept very clean, being fre- 
quently scrubbed with sand and water. In the house, women and children 
are habitually bare-footed, and the men usually in stocking-feet. The valinka 
would scald his feet if he wore them inside, as many a soldier found to his 
dismay. Sometimes chairs are found, but seldom bed-steads except in the 
larger homes. Each member of the family has a pallet of coarse cloth 
stuffed with fluffy flax, which is placed at night on the floor, on benches, 
on part of the top of the huge stone or brick stove, or on a platform laid 
close up under the ceiling on beams extending from the stove to the opposite 
wall of the living-room. The place on the stove is reserved for the aged 
and the babies. It was the best bed in the house and was often proffered to 
the American with true hospitality to the stranger. The bed-clothes consist 
of blankets, quilts and sometimes robes of skins. Some of the patch-work 
quilts are examples of wonderful needle-work. In the day-time it is usual 
to see the pallets and rolls of bedding stored on the platform just men- 
tioned, which is almost always just over the low, heavy door leading in 
from the outer hall to the main living-room. 

In North Russia the one-room house is decidedly the exception, and 
because of the influence of the deep snows on the customs of the people 
probably half the houses have two stories. One large roof covers both the 
home and the barn. The second story of the barn part can be used for 
stock, but is usually the mow or store-room for hay, grains, cured meat and 
fish, nets and implements, and is approached by an inclined runway of logs 
up which the stocky little horses draw loaded wagons or sleds. When the 
snow is real deep the runway is sometimes unnecessary. The mow is entered 
through a door direct from the second story of the home part of the build- 
ing, and the stable similarly from the ground floor. 

163 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

The central object, and the most curious to an American, in the whole 
house is the huge Russian stove. In the larger houses there are several. 
These stoves are constructed of masonry and are built before the partitions 
of the house are put in and before the walls are completed. In the main 
stove there are three fire-boxes and a maze of surrounding air-spaces and 
smoke-passages, and surmounting all a great chimney which in two-story 
houses is itself made into a heating-stove with one fire-box for the upper 
rooms. When the house is to be heated a little door is opened near the base 
of the chimney and a damper-plate is removed, so that the draft will be 
direct and the smoke escape freely into the chimney after quite a circuitous 
passage through the body of the stove. A certain bunch of sergeants nearly 
asphyxiated themselves before they discovered the secret of the damper in 
the stove. They were nearly pickled in pine smoke. And a whole company 
of soldiers nearly lost their billet in Kholmogori when they started up the 
sisters' stoves without pulling the plates of¥ the chimney. 

Then the heating fire-box is furnished with blazing pine splinters and an 
armful of pine stove-wood and left alone for about an hour or until all the 
wood is burnt to a smokeless and gasless mass of hot coals and fine ash. 
The damper plate is then replaced, which stops all escape of heat up the 
chimney, and the whole structure of the stove soon begins to radiate a gentle 
heat. Except in the coldest of weather it is not necessary to renew the fire 
in such a stove more than once daily, and one armful of wood is the stand- 
ard fuel consumption at each firing. 

Another of the fire-boxes in the main stove is a large smooth-floored and 
vaulted opening with a little front porch roofed by a hood leading into the 
chimney. This is the oven, and here on baking days is built a fire which is 
raked out when the walls and floor are heated and is followed by the loaves 
and pastry put in place with a flat wooden paddle with a long handle. See 
the picture of the stove and the pie coming out of the oven in the American 
convalescent hospital in Archangel. The third fire-box is often in a low 
section of the stove covered by an iron plate, and is used only for boiling, 
broiling and frying. As there is not much food broiled or fried, and as soup 
and other boiled food is often allowed to simmer in stone jars in the oven, 
the iron-covered fire-box is not infrequently left cold except in summer. 
The stove-structure itself is variously contrived as to outward architecture 
so as to leave one or more alcoves, the warm floors of which form com- 
fortable bed-spaces. The outer surface of the stove is smoothly cemented 
or enameled. So large are these stoves that partition-logs are set in grooves 
left in the outer stove-wall, and a portion of the wall of each of four or 
five rooms is often formed by a side or corner of the same stove. And 
radiation from the warm bricks heats the rooms. 

Washing of clothes is done by two processes, soaping and rubbing in hot 
water at home and rinsing and rubbing m cold water at the river-bank or 
through a hole cut in the ice in the winter. Although the result may please 
the eye, it frequently ofifends the nose because of the common use of "fish- 
oil soap." Not only was there dead fish in the soap but also a mixture of 
petroleum residue. No wonder the soldier-poet doggereled "It's the horn* 

164 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

of the cootie and beg-bug, The herring and mud-colored crows, My strong- 
est impression of Russia, Get's into my head through my nose." 

Bathing is a strenuous sport pursued by almost every individual with 
avidity. It is carried on in special bath-houses of two or more rooms, found 
in the yard of almost every peasant family. The outer door leads to the 
entry, the next door to a hot undressing-room, and the inner door to a 
steaming inferno in which is a small masonry stove, a cauldron of hot water, 
a barrel of ice-water, a bench, several platforms of various altitudes, several 
beaten copper or brass basins, a dipper and a lot of aromatic twigs bound 
in small bunches. With these he flails the dead cuticle much to the same 
effect as our scouring it off with a rough towel. Such is the grandfather 
of the "Russian Bath" found in some of our own cities. After scrubbing 
thoroughly, and steaming almost to the point of dissolution on one of the 
higher platforms, a Russian will dash on cold water from the barrel and dry 
himself and put on his clothes and feel tip-top. An American would make 
his will and call the undertaker before following suit. In the summer 
there is considerable open-air river bathing, and the absence of bathing- 
suits other than nature's own is never given a thought. 

The people of this north country are shorter and stockier than the aver- 
age American. The prevailing color of hair is dark brown. Their faces 
and hands are weather-beaten and wrinkle early. Despite their general 
cleanliness, they often look greasy and smell to high heaven because of their 
habit of annointing hair and skin with fats and oils, especially fish-oil. 
Not all do this, but the practice is prevalent enough so that the fish-oil and 
old-fur odors are inescapable in any peasant community and cling for a long 
time to the clothing of any traveler who sojourns there, be it ever so briefly. 
American soldiers in 1918-1919 became so accustomed to it that they felt 
something intangible was missing when they left the country and it was 
some time before a clever Yank thought of the reason. 

Before the great world war, a young peasant who was unmarried at 
twenty-two was a teacher, a nun, or an old maid. The birth-rate is high, 
and the death-rate among babies not what it is in our proud America. Young 
families often remain under the grandfather's rooftree until another house 
or two becomes absolutely necessary to accommodate the overflow. If 
through some natural series of events a young woman has a child without 
having been married by the priest, no great stir is made over it. The fact 
that she is not thrown out of her family home is not consciously ascribed 
to charity of spirit, nor are the villagers conscious of anything broad or 
praiseworthy in their kindly attitude. The result is that the baby is loved 
and the mother is usually happily wed to the father of her child. The North 
Russian villager is an assiduous gossip, but an incident of this kind receives 
no more attention as an item of news that if its chronology had been thor- 
oughly conventional by American standards. 

Marriages are occasions of great feasting and rejoicing; funerals like- 
wise stir the whole community, but the noise of the occasion is far more 
terrifying and ilerve-wracking. Births are quiet affairs ; but the christening 
is quite a function, attended with a musical service, and the "name-day" 

165 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

anniversary is often celebrated in preference to the birthday anniversary by 
the adult Russian peasant. Everybody was born, but not everybody received 
such a fine name from such a fine family at such a fine service under the 
leadership of such a fine priest ; and not everybody has such fine god-parents. 
The larger religious festivals are also occasions for enjoyable community 
gatherings, and especially during the winter the little dances held in a large 
room of some patient man's house until the wee small hours are something 
not to be missed by young or old. Yes, the North Russian peasant plays 
as well as works, and so keen is his enjoyment that he puts far more energy 
into the play. Because of his simple mode of existence it is not necessary 
to overwork in normal times to obtain all the food, clothing, houses and 
utensils he cares to use. Ordinarily he is a quiet easy-going human. 

Perhaps there is more of sense of humor in the apparently phlegmatic 
passivity of the Russian nitchevo than is suspected by those not acquainted 
with him. There is also a great timidity in it; for the Russian moujik or 
christianik (peasant farmer) has scarcely been sure his soul is his own, 
since time immemorable. But his sense of humor has been his salvation, 
for it has enabled him to be patient and pleasant under conditions beyond 
his power to change. Courtesy to an extent unknown in America marks 
his daily life. He is intelligent, and is resourceful to a degree, although not 
well educated. 

The average North Russian is not dishonest in a personal way. That is, 
he has no personal animus in his deviousness unless someone has directly 
offended him. He will haul a load of small articles unguarded for many 
versts and deliver every piece safely, in spite of his own great hunger, 
because he is in charge of the shipment. But he will charge a commission 
at both ends of a business deal, and will accept a "gift" almost any time 
for any purpose and then mayhap not "deliver." Only a certain small class, 
however, and that practically confined to Archangel and environs, will admit 
even most privately that any gift or advantage is payment for a given favor 
which would not be extended in the ordinary course of business. This class 
is not the national back-bone, but rather the tinsel trimmings in the national 
show-window. 

One time a passing British convoy commandeered some hay at Bolshe- 
ozerki. Upon advice of the American officer the starosta accepted a paper 
due bill from the British officer for the hay. Weeks afterward the Amer- 
ican officer found that the Russian had been up to that time unable to get 
cash on his due bill. Naturally he looked to the American for aid. The 
officer took it up with the British and was assured that the due bill would 
be honored. But to quiet the feeling of the starosta he advanced him the 
92 roubles, giving the headman his address so that he could return the 92 
roubles to the American officer when the British due bill came cash. Brother 
officers ridiculed the Yank officer for trusting the Russian peasant, who was 
himself waiting doubtfully on the British. But his judgment was vindicated 
later and the honesty of the starosta demonstrated when a letter travelled 
hundreds of miles to Pinega with 92 roubles for the American officer. 

166 



XX 

Holding The Onega Vaeley 

December Fighting — Drawn Struggle Near Turchesova — Fighting Near 
Khala In February — Corporal Collins And Men Are Ambushed 
Near Bolsheozerki — "H" Company In Two Savage Battles — Lieuts. 
Collins And Phillips Both Mortally Wounded. 

The enemYj who was massing up forces in the upper Pinega valley and, as 
we have seen, caused British G. H. Q. to send one company of Americans 
hurrying up the valley for a 150-mile march Christmas week, was also fixing 
up a surprise for the G. H. Q. on the other end of the great line of defense. 
That same Christmas week "H" Company found itself again up against 
greatly superior forces who, as they boasted, were commencing their winter 
campaign to drive the invaders of Russia to the depths of the White Sea. 

On December 20th one squad of "H" men were in a patrol fight with the 
enemy which drove the Reds from the village of Kleshevo. On the following 
day Lt. Ketcham with twenty Americans and a platoon of R. A. N. B,, 
Russian Allied Naval Brigade, proceeded south for reconnaissance in force 
and engaged a strong enemy patrol in Priluk, driving the Reds out, killing 
one, wounding one, and taking one prisoner. On December 22nd Lt. Carlson's 
platoon occupied Kleshevo and Lt. Ketcham's platoon occupied the village 
on the opposite side of the river. The next day at a village near Priluk 
Lt. Carlson's men on patrol encountered a Bolo combat patrol and inflicted 
severe losses and took five prisoners. 

Christmas Day and several other days were occupied with these patrol 
combats by the two opposing forces, each of which thought the other had 
gone into winter quarters. 

In conformity with the general advance planned on all fronts by the 
British Command to beat the enemy to the attack and to reach a position 
which would nullify the enemy's tremendous advantage of position with 
his base at Plesetskaya, the British Officer in command of the Onega Valley 
Detachment, planned an attack on Turchesova. Lt. E. R. Collins with the 
second fourth platoons left Pogashitche at 4:00 a. m. December 29, proceed- 
ing up the Schmokee River in an attempt to get around Turchesova and 
strike the enemy in the flank. It was found, however, that the woods on 
this side were impassable and so the force left the river by a winter trail 
for Pertema, proceeding thence to Goglova, to reinforce the Polish company 
of Allies who had captured that village on the same morning. 

This was wise. The next morning the enemy counter-attacked Goglova 
in great force, but, fortunately, was repulsed without any casualties on our 
side. He had, however, a threatening position in the village of Zelyese about 
a mile to the left flank and rear of our position and was discovered to be 
preparing to renew the battle the next day. Lt. Collins was obliged to 
divide his force just as again and again the American officers all along that 

167 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

great Russian winter front again and again were compelled to divide in the 
face of greatly superior and encircling forces. 

Taking Lt. Ketcham's platoon early the next morning, he boldly struck at 
the enemy force in his rear and after an hour's fighting the "H" men had 
possession of the village. But the enemy was at once reinforced from Tur- 
chesova and delivered a counter-attack that the "H" men repulsed with 
severe losses. Our wounded in the action were two; none killed. Horse- 
shoes again. The enemy dead and wounded were over fifty. The enemy 
continued firing at long range next day, New Years of 1919, and wounded 
one "H." 

Indications pointed tov/ard an inclination of the enemy to evacuate 
Turchesova. Therefore, a message received by Lt. Collins at 5 :00 p. m., 
January 1, from British O. C. Onega Det., ordering a withdrawal within 
two hours to Kleshevo, came as a surprise to the American soldiers. In 
this hasty retreat much confusion arose among the excited Russian drivers 
of sleighs. Some horses and drivers were injured; much ammunition, equip- 
ment, and supplies were lost. 

The enemy did not follow and for the remainder of January and up to 
February 9th the "H" Company men performed the routine duties of patrol 
and garrison duties in the Onega Valley in the vicinity of Kleshevo without 
any engagement with the enemy who seemed content to rest in quarters and 
keep out of the way of the Americans and Allies. 

On February 10th Lt. Ketcham with a combat patrol drove the enemy 
from Khala whom he encountered with a pair of machine guns on patrol. 
He defeated the Reds without any casualties, inflicting a loss on the enemy 
of one killed and two wounded. 

For more than a month the sector of defense was quiet except for an 
occasional rise of the "wind." Active patrols were kept out. Captain 
Ballensinger assumed command of the company and moved his headquarters 
from Onega to Chekuevo. As the mail from and to Archangel from the 
outside world as well as supplies and" reinforcements of men were now obliged 
to use the road from Obozerskaya to Bolsheozerki to Chekuevo to Onega to 
Kem and so on to Kola and return, it became part of the duty of "H" 
Company to patrol the road from Chekuevo to Obozerskaya ; taking two 
days coming and two, days going with night stops at Chinova or Bolsheo- 
zerki. 

The last of these patrols left Chekuevo on Sunday, March 16, fell into the 
hands of the advance patrols of the Bolo General who had executed a long 
flank march, annihilated the Franco-Russian force at Bolsheozerki, and oc- 
cupied the area with a great force of infantry, mounted men, skli troops, 
and both light and heavy artillery, as related elsewhere in connection with 
the story of the defense of the railroad. 

The next day Lt. Collins with thirty men and a Lewis gun started toward 
Bolsherozerki to discover the situation with orders to report at Chinova to 
Col. Lucas, the French officer in command of the Vologda Force. Travelling 
all night, he reached Col. Lucas in the morning and the latter determined 
to push on under escort of the Americans and attempt to reach Bolsheozerki 

168 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

and Oborzerskaya, being at that time ignorant of the real strength of the 
force of Reds that had interrupted the communications. 

About noon, March 18th, the detachment in escort formation left Chinova 
and proceeded without signs of enemy till within four versts of Bolsheozerki, 
where they were met by sudden burst of a battery of machine guns. Luckily 
the range was wrong. The horses bolted upsetting the sleighs and throwing 
Col. Lucas into the neck-deep snov/. The Americans returned the fire and 
slowly retired with the loss of but one man killed. Crawling in the snow 
for a great distance gave many of them severe frost bites, one of the most 
acute sufferers being the French Col. Lucas. The detachment returned to 
Chinova to report by telephone to Chekuevo and to organize a defensive 
position in case the enerny should advance toward Chekuevo. The enemy 
did not pursue. He was crafty. That would have indicated his great 
strength. 

By order of Col. Lawrie, British O. C. Onega Det., Lt. Phillips was sent 
with about forty "H", Company men to reinforce Lt. Collins. It was the 
British Colonel's idea that only a large raiding party of Bolos were at Bol- 
sheozerki for the purpose of raiding the supply trains of food that were 
coming from Archangel to Chekuevo. Phillips reached Chinova before 
daybreak of the twentieth. Lt. Collins was joined at the little village of 
Chinova by three companies of Yorks, enroute from Murmansk to Obozer- 
skaya, a U. S. Medical corps officer, Lt. Springer, and "four men joined the 
force and an attack was ordered on Bolsheozerki by these seventy Americans 
and three hundred Yorks. They did not know that they were going up 
against ten times their number. 

At 2:00 a. m. the movement started and at nine in the morning the 
American advance guard drew fire from the enemy. Deploying as planned 
on the left of the road the "H" men moved forward in line of battle. One 
company of Yorks moved off to the right to attack from the woods and 
one on the left of the Americans. One York company was in reserve. After 
advancing over five hundred yards in face of the enemy machine gun fire, 
the Americans were exhausted by the deep snow and held on to a line within 
one hundred yards of the enemy. The Yorks on the right and left advanced 
just as gallantly and were also held back by the deep snow and the severity 
of the enemy machine gun fire. 

The fight continued for five hours. Lovable old Lt. Collins fell mortally 
wounded by a Bolo bullet while cheering his men on the desperate line of 
battle. At last Lt. Phillips was obliged to report his ammunition exhausted 
and appealed for reinforcements and ammunition. Major Monday passed 
on the appeal to Col. Lawrie who gave up the attack and ordered the forces 
to withdraw under cover of darkness, which they all did in good order. 
Losses had not been as heavy as the fury of the fight promised. One Amer- 
ican enlisted man wag killed and Lt. Collins died of hemorrhage on the 
way to Chekuevo. Eight American enlisted men were severely wounded. 
The Yorks lost two officers and two enlisted men killed, and ten enlisted men 
wounded. Many of the American and British soldiers were frostbitten. 

169 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

During the next week the enemy, we learned later, greatly augmented his 
forces and strengthened his defenses of Bolsheozerki with German wire, ma- 
chine guns, and artillery. He was evidently bent on exploiting his patrol 
action success and aimed to cut the railroad at Obozerskaya and later deal 
with the Onega detachment at leisure. Our troops made use of the lull in 
the activities to make thorough patrols to discover enemy positions and 
to send all wounded and sick to Onega for safety, bringing up every avail- 
able man for the next drive to knock the Bolo out of Bolsheozerki. This 
was under the command of Lt.-Col. Morrison (British army). 

Meanwhile the Bolo General had launched a vicious drive at the Amer- 
icans and Russians who stood between him and his railway objective, en- 
circling them with three regiments, and on April 2, after two days of con- 
tinuous assault was threatening to overpower them. In this extremity Col. 
Lawrie answered the appeal of the British officer commanding at Obozer- 
skaya by ordering another attack on the west by his forces. Captain Bal- 
lensinger reports in substance as follows : 

In compliance with orders he detailed April 1, one N. C. O. and ten 
privates to man two Stokes mortars, also one N. C. O. and seven privates 
for a Vickers gun. Both these details reported to a Russian trench mortar 
officer and remained under his command during the engagement. The bal- 
ance of the available men at the advance base Usolia was divided into two 
platoons, the first under Lt. Phillips and the other under the First Sergeant. 
These platoons under Capt. Ballensinger's command, as part of the reserve, 
joined the column on the road at the appointed time. 

They arrived at their position on the road about four versts from Bol- 
sheozerki about 1 :00 a. m. April 2. Zero hour was set at daybreak, 3 :00 a. m. 
The first firing began about thirty minutes later, "A" Company of the Yorks 
drawing fire from the northern or right flank of the enemy. They reported 
afterward that the Bolos had tied dogs in the woods whose barking had 
given the alarm. That company advanced in the face of strong machine 
gun fire and Capt. Bailey, a British officer went to his death gallantly leading 
his men in a rush at the guns on a ridge. But floundering in the snow, with 
their second officer wounded, they were repulsed and forced to retire. 

At 5:00 a. m. Lt. Pellegrom, having hurried out from Archangel, reported 
for duty and was put in command of a platoon. 

At 6 :00 a. m. "A" Company Yorks was in desperate straits and by verbal 
order of Col. Lund one platoon of Americans was sent to support their 
retirement. Lt. Phillips soon found himself hotly engaged. 

The original plan had been to send the Polish Company in to attack the 
southern villages or the extreme left of the Bolo linci but owing to their 
lateness of arrival they were not able to go in there and were held for a 
frontal attack, supported by the American trench mortars. They were met 
by a severe machine gun fire and after twenty minutes of hot fire and heavy 
losses retired from action. 

Meanwhile "C" Company Yorks which had been sent around to attack 
on the north of Bolsheozerki got lost in the woods in the dark, trying to 
follow an old trail made by a Russian officer and a few men who had come 

170 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

around the north end of the Bolsheozerki area a few days previously with 
messages from Obozerskaya. The company did not get into action and had 
to return. Thus the attack had failed, and the force found itself on a 
desperate defensive. 

The "A" Yorks, who had suffered severely, retired from action immed- 
iately after the first counter-attack of the Bolo had been repulsed. Then the 
whole defense of this messed-up attacking force fell upon the American 
platoon and a dozen Yorks with a doughty British officer. Phillips, through 
the superb control of his men, kept them all in line and his Lewis guns going 
with great effectiveness and gave ground slowly and grudgingly, in spite of 
casualties and great severity of cold. 

When Phillips fell with the wound which was later to prove fatal, Pelle- 
grom came up with his platoon to relieve the exhausted platoon, and "C" 
Company Yorks arrived on the line from their futile flank march just in time 
to join the Americans at 9:00 a. m. in checking the redoubled counter- 
attack of the hordes of Bolos. 

Meanwhile the Polish troops refused to go back into the fighting line to 
help stem the Bolo attack. Peremptory order brought two of their Colt 
automatics up to the line where for forty-five minutes they engaged the 
enemy, but again retired to the rear and assisted only by firing their machine 
gun over the heads of the Americans and British battling for their very 
lives all that afternoon in the long thin line of American O. D. and British 
Khaki. 

The Bolo was held in check and at dusk the Americans and British and 
Poles withdrew in good order. 

This ill-fated attack had met with a savage repulse but no doubt it had a 
great effect upon the Bolshevik General at Bolsheozerki. On his right he 
had himself met bloody disaster from a company of Americans who had 
fought his attacking battalions to a standstill for sixty hours and here on 
his left flank was another Company of Americans who had twice attacked 
him and seemed never to stay defeated. April sun was likely to soften his 
winter road to mush very soon and then these Americans and their allies 
would have him at their mercy. 

The losses of the enemy were not known but later accounts from prisoners 
and from natives of the village, who were there, placed them very high. 
In this last attack "H" lost one officer, who died of wounds later, also one 
man killed, one mortally wounded and seven others wounded. The British 
lost one officer killed, one wounded, two privates killed, two missing and ten 
wounded. The Polish Company lost five killed, eight missing and ten 
wounded. 

Of the gallant Phillips who fell at Bolsheozerki we are pleased to include 
the following from his company commander: 

"But when he went forward something made me look him over agaiui 
and the look I saw on his face and especially in his eyes, I shall never 
forget. 

"I have never seen a look like it before or since. It was by no means 
the look of a man being afraid (I have seen those looks) nor was it a 
look of T don't care what happens.' It was a look that made me watch 

171 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

him all the way out. It made me hunt him up with my glasses, while I 
was watching the enemy. The latter was pressing us awfully hard that 
day, and when I observed our troops slowly giving ground, I went out 
in person to see if the look on Phillip's face had something to do with 
it. But I soon changed my mind. He was all along the line encouraging 
his men to hold on, he helped to put new Lewis guns in position. In 
short, he was everywhere without apparent thought of the bullets flying 
all around him. He pulled back wounded men to be carried back behind 
the lines. I know that his men would have held every bit of ground, 
had the British who were holding the flanks not fallen way back behind 
them. 

"When the fateful bullet struck him, it knocked him down as if a ton 
of brick had fallen on him. He said to me, 'My God, I got it. Captain, 
don't bother with me, I am done for, just look after the boys'." 

Let us here relate the story of his plucky fight for life after a Bolo 
bullet tore through his breast. 

Borne tenderly in the arms of his own men to a sleigh which was gently 
drawn to Chanova and thence to Chekuevo, he rallied from his great loss 
of blood. Apparently his chances for recovery were good. He sat up in 
bed, ate with reUsh and exchanged greetings with his devoted "H" com- 
pany men who to a man would gladly have changed places with him — 
what a fine comradeship there was between citizen-officer and citizen-soldier. 
Contrary to expectations Phillips was soon moved from Chekuevo to Onega 
for safety and for better care. But very soon after reaching Onega hem- 
morhage began again. Then followed weeks of struggle for life. Every- 
thing possible was done for him with the means at hand. Although the 
hospital aff^orded no X-ray to discern the location of the fatal arterial lesion 
through which his life was secretly spurting away, the post mortem revealed 
the fact that the Bolshevik rifle bullet had severed a tiny artery in his lung. 

Care-worn American medical men wept in despair. Wireless messages 
throbbed disheartening reports on his condition to anxious regimental com- 
rades on other fronts and at Archangel. At last the heroic struggle ended. 
On the tenth of May Phillips bled to death of his wound. 

The valiant company had done its best in the fall and winter fighting. 
The company retired to Chekuevo and Onega, doing guard duty and patrols 
during the spring. The only event of note was the midnight game of base- 
ball between the medics and doughboys. The medics could not hit the pills 
as hard as the doughboys. They left Onega June 5th, by steamboat for Eco- 
nomia Island and left Russia June 15th. 



172 



XXI 

IcE-BouND Archangel 

Ferry Boat Fights Ice — Archangel Cosmopolitan — Bartering For Eats — 
Strange Wood Famine — Entertainment At American Headquarters 
— Doughboy Minstrelsy — Reindeer Teams — Russian Eskimo — Bol- 
shevik Prisoners — S. B. A. L. Mutiny — Major Young's Scare At 
Smolny — Shakleton Boots — British Rations For Yank Soldiers — 
Corporal Knight Writes Humorous Sketch Of Ice-Bound Archangel. 

On the ferry boat the troops speculated whether or not we would get stuck 
in the ice before we could cross the river to Archangel Preestin. It was 
November 22nd, 1918. The Dvina ran under glass. On the streets of Arch- 
angel sleighs were slipping. Winter was on and Archangel in a few days 
would be ice-bound. For a few days more the ice-breakers would keep the 
ferry going across the Dvina and would cut for the steamships a way out 
to sea. Then the White Sea would freeze solid for six months. In a few 
days the Archangel-Economia winter railroad would be running. Ice- 
breakers would for a while brave the Arctic gales that swept the north 
coast. Then they would surrender and the great white silence would begin. 

Varied and interesting are the tales that are told of that winter in Arch- 
angel. They are descriptive as well as narrative but there is not much 
coherence to the chapter. However, to the soldiers who were there, or who 
were out and in Archangel during the winter of 1918-19 this chapter will be 
pleasing. 

In from a far-off front for a few days rest, or in on some mission such 
as the bringing of Bolshevik prisoners or to get some of the company property 
which had been left behind when in the fall the troops left troopships so 
hurriedly, these groups of American soldiers from the fighting fronts always 
found Archangel of interest. They found that it was a half-modern, half- 
oriental city, half-simple, half-wicked, with the gay along with the drab, with 
bright lights along with the gloom. 

In Archangel were all kinds of people — whiskered moujiks beating their 
ponies along the snow-covered streets, sleek-looking people of the official 
class, well-dressed men and women of cultured appearance, young women 
whose faces were pretty and who did not wear boots and shawls but dressed 
attractively and seemed to enjoy the attention of doughboys, and soldiers 
of several nations, veterans of war and adventure in many climes. What a 
cosmopolitan crowd it was in that f rozen-in city of the North ! 

The doughboy from the front soon learned that the city had its several 
national centers — the British quarters, French, Italian, and so forth, where 
■their flags denoted their headquarters and in vicinity of which would be 
found their barracks and quarters and clubs. The Yank found himself wel- 
come in every quarter of the city but hailed with most camaraderie in the 
French quarter. With the Russian night patrols he soon came to an amicable 

173 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

understanding and Russian) cafes soon found out that the Yanks were the 
freest spenders and treated them accordingly. Woe to the luckless "Lim- 
mey" who tried to edge in on a Yank party in a Russian place. 

When the doughboy returned to his company at the front he had a few 
great tales to tell of the eats he had found at some places. Some companies 
had done well. On the market-place and elsewhere the resourceful Amer- 
ikanski looking for food, especially vegetables, to supplement his mess, 
learned his first word of Russian — Skulka rouble. In spite of the watchful 
British M. P.'s, Ruby Queens and Scissors cigarettes were soon bringing 
in small driblets of cabbage and onions and potatoes. Happy the old mess 
sergeant who got his buddies expert at this game. And much more con- 
tented were the men with the mess. In another chapter read the wonderful 
menu of the convalescent hospital. 

In the city the doughboy found the steaming bahnya or bathhouse, 
and at the "cootie mill" turned in his shirt to rid himself of the "seam 
squirrels." All cleaned up, with little gifts and cheery words he sought 
his buddies who were in hospital sick or wounded. He got books and rec- 
ords and gramaphones and other things at the Red Cross and "Y" to take 
back to the company. He accumulated a thousand rumors about the expedi- 
tion and about happenings back home. He tired of the gloom and magni- 
fied fears of Archangel's being overpowered by the Bolos and usually re- 
turned to the front twice glad — once that he had seen Archangel and second 
that he was back among his comrades at the front. 

During those weary ice-bound months it was a problem to keep warm. 
Poor management by high American and British officers at one time, to 
the writer's knowledge, suffered American soldiers at Smolny to be actually 
endangered in health. As far as proper heating of quarters was concerned 
men at the front provided better for themselves than did the commander 
at Smolny, Major Young, provide for those fighters in from the fighting 
front for rest. And that might be said too for his battalion mess. No 
wonder the doughboy set out to help himself in these things. 

Strange to the American soldiers was the fact that at Archangel, a city 
of saw-mills, sitting in a nick of a great forest that extended for hundreds 
of miles south, east and west, there was such difficulty in getting supplies 
of fuel. A desperate sergeant took a detail of men and salvaged a lot of 
logs lying near the river's edge, borrowed some Russki saws with a few 
cigarettes, commandeered some carts and brought to the cook's kitchen and 
to the big stoves in the barracks a fine supply of wood. But the joke of it 
was that the watchful Russian owner of the logs sent in his bill for the 
wood to the British G. H. Q. And a ream of correspondence was started 
between Major Young and G. H. Q., the typewriter controversy continuing 
long, like Katy-did and Katy-didn't, long after the sergeant with diplomacy, 
partial restoration, and sugar had appeased the complaining Russian. 

At American headquarters in the Technical Institute was held many a 
pleasant entertainment to while away the winter hours. The auditorium 
possessed a stage and a good dance floor. The moving picture machine 
and the band were there. Seated on the backless wooden benches soldiers 

• 174 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

looked at the pictures or listened to the orchestra or to their own doughboy 
talent showing his art at vaudeville or minstrelsy. 

Or on officers' entertainment night they and their guests chosen from 
charming Russian families, joyfully danced or watched the antics of Douglas 
Fairbanks, Fatty Arbuckle, Charlie Chaplin, and even our dear deceased old 
John Bunnie. Not a silver lining but has its cloudy surface, and many were 
the uncomfortable moments when the American officer found himself wish- 
ing he could explain to his fair guest the meaning of the scene. More than 
rumor spread through that North country, attributing wonderful powers to 
the Americans based on some Douglas Fairbanks exploit. Can it be that 
the enemy heard some of these rumors and were unwilling at times to go 
against the Americans? 

Enlisted men's entertainments by the "Y" and their own efforts to battle 
ennui with minstrel show and burlesque and dances have already been men- 
tioned. The great high Gorka built by the American engineers in the 
heart of the city afforded a half-verst slide, a rush of clinging men and 
women as their toboggan coursed laughing and screaming in merriment down 
to the river where it pitched swiftly again down to the ice. Here at the 
Gorka as at "the merry-go-round," the promenade near Sabornya, the 
doughboy learned how to put the right persuasion into his voice as he said 
Moshna, barishna, meaning : Will you take a slide or walk with me, little 
girl? At Christmas, New Year's and St. Patrick's Day, they had special 
entertainments. Late in March 'T' Company three times repeated its grand 
minstrel show. 

Many a doughboy in Archangel, Kholmogora, Yemetskoe, Onega or 
Pinega, at one time or another during the long winter, got a chance to 
ride with the Russian Eskimo and his reindeer. Doughboys who were sup- 
porting the artillery the day that the enemy moved on Chertkva and threat- 
ened Peligorskaya, can recall seeing the double sled teams of reindeer that 
came flashing up through the lines with the American commanding officer 
who had been urgently called for by the Russian officer at Peligorskaya. 
Sergeant Kant will never forget that wild ride. He sat on the rear sled, 
or rather he clung to the top of it during that hour's ride of twelve miles. 
The wise old buck reindeer who was hitched as a rudder to the rear of his 
sled would brace and pull back to keep the sergeant's sled from snapping 
the whip at the turns, and that would lift the sled clear from the surface. 
And when the old buck was not steering the sled but trotting with leaping 
strides behind the sled then the bumps in the road bounced the sled high. 
Out in front the reindeer team of three strained against their simple harness 
and supplied the rapid succession of jerks that flew the sleds along toward 
the embattled artillery. The reindeer travelled with tongues hanging out as 
if in distress; they panted; they steamed and coated with frost; they thrust 
their muzzles into the cooling snow to slake their thirst; but they were en- 
joying the wild run; they fairly skimmed over the snow trail. The Eskimo 
driver called his peculiar moaning cry to urge them on, slapped his lead 
reindeer with the single rein that was fastened to his left antler, or prodded 
his team on the haunches with the long pole which he carried for that pur- 

175 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

pose and for steering' his light sled, and with surprising nimbleness leaped 
on and off his sled as he guided the sled past or over obstructions. A snow- 
covered log across the trail caused no delay. A leap of three antlered forms, 
twelve grey legs flashing in the air, a bump of the light sled that volplanes 
an instant in a shower of snow, a quick leap and a grab for position back on 
the sled, the thrilling act is over, and the Eskimo has not shown a sign of 
excitement in his Indian-like stoic face. On we skim at unbroken pace. We 
soon reach the place. 

One of the views shown in this volume is that of a characteristic rein- 
deer team and sled. Another shows the home of the North Russian branch 
of the Eskimo family. The writer vividly recalls the sight of a semi-wild 
herd of reindeer feeding in the dense pine and spruce woods. They were 
digging down through the deep snow to get the succulent reindeer moss. 
We approached on our Russian ponies with our, to them, strange-looking 
dress. What a thrill it gave us to see them, as if at signal of some sentry, 
raise their heads in one concerted, obedient look for signal of some leader, 
and then with great bounds go leaping away to safety, flashing through the 
dark stems of the trees like a flight of grey arrows discharged from a single 
bow. Further on we came upon the tented domiciles of the owners of this 
herd. Our red-headed Russian guide appeased the clamors of the innumerable 
dogs who bow-wowed out from all sides of the wigwam-like tents of these 
North Russian nomad homes, while we Americans looked on in wonder. 
Here was the very counterpart of the American Indian buck and squaw 
home that our grandads had seen in Michigan. The women at last appeared 
and rebuked the ragged half-dressed children for their precipitate rushing 
out to see the strangers. For a little tobacco they became somewhat talk- 
ative and willingly enough gave our guide information about the location of 
the hidden still we were going to visit, where pine pitch was baked out and 
barrelled for use in repairing the steamboats and many fishing boats of the 
area. We studied this aborigine woman and questioned our guide later 
about these people. Like our Indians they are. Pagans they are and in 
this volume is a picture of one of their totem poles. Untouched by the 
progress of civilization, they live in the great Slavic ocean of people that 
has rolled over them in wave after wave, but has not changed them a bit. 
Space can not be afforded for the numerous interesting anecdotes that are 
now in the mind of the writer and the doughboy reader who so many times 
saw the reindeer and their Russian Eskimo owners in their wilds or in Arch- 
angel or other cities and villages where they appear in their annual winter 
migrations. 

Probably the one most interesting spot in the frozen port city was the 
American expeditionary post-office. Here at irregular intervals, at first via 
ice-breaker, which battled its way up to the edge of the ice crusted coast 
north of Economia, came our mail bags from home. Later those bags came 
in hundreds of miles over the winter snow roads, hauled by shaggy ponies 
driven by hairy, weather-beaten moujiks. Mail — letters, papers, little things 
from home, the word still connotes pleasure to us. Mail days were boon 
days, and at the mail-place a detail always arrived early and cheerful. 

176 





1 K'fl 





Pvt. Allikas Finds His Mother in Archatigel 



S OFFICIAL PHOTO 




Printing "The American Sentinel' 



S OFFICIAL PHOTO 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIK! 

Familiar sights in the streets of winter Archangel were the working 
parties composed of Bolshevik prisoners of war. Except for the doughboy 
guard it might have been difficult to tell them from a free working party. 
They all looked alike. In fact, many a scowling face on a passing sled would 
have matched the Bolo clothes better than some of those boyish faces under 
guard. And how the prisoners came to depend on the doughboy. Several 
times it was known and laughingly told about that Bolo prisoners individ- 
ually managed to escape, sneak home or to a confederate's home, get food, 
money and clean clothes, and then report back to the American guards. 
They preferred to be prisoners rather than to remain at large. Once a wor- 
ried corporal of a prisoner guard detail at the convalescent hospital was 
inventing a story to account to the sergeant for his A, W. O. L. prisoner 
when to his mingled feeling of relief and disgust, in walked the lost prisoner, 
nitchevo, khorashaw. 

The corporal felt about as sheepish as a sergeant and corporal of another 
company had felt one night when they had spent an hour and a half out- 
maneuvering the sentries, carrying off a big, heavy case to a dark spot, and 
quietly opening the case found that instead of Scotch "influenza cure'' it 
was a box of horseshoes. In that case horseshoes meant no luck. 

Is war cruel? In that city of Archangel with nowhere to retreat, nervous 
times were bound to come. "The wind up their back," that is, cold shivers, 
made kind-hearted, level-headed men do harsh things. Comrade Danny 
Anderson of "Hq" Company could tell a blood-curdling story of the execu- 
tion he witnessed. Six alleged agents of the German war office, Russian 
Bolo spies, in one "windy" moment were brutally put away by British officers. 
Their brains spattered on the stone wall. Sherman said it. We are glad 
to say that such incidents were remarkably rare in North Russia. The Allied 
officers and troops have a record of which they may be justly proud. 

Here we may as well tell of the S. B. A. L. mutiny in Archangel in early 
winter. It is the story of an occurrence both pitiful and aggravating. After 
weeks of feeding and pampering and drilling and equipping and shining of 
brass buttons and showing off, when the order came for them to prepare to 
march off to the fighting front, the S. B. A. L. held a soviet in their big 
grey-stone barracks and refused to get ready to go out because they had 
grievances against their British officers. This was aggravatingly unreason- 
able and utterly unmilitary. Severe measures would have to be used. They 
were given till 2 :00 p. m. to reconsider their soviet resolution. , 

Meanwhile G. H. Q. had ordered out the American "Hq" Company trench 
mortar section and a section of the American Machine Gun Company to 
try bomb and bullet argument on the S. B. A. L.'s who were barricading 
their barracks and pointing machine guns from their windows. Promptly 
on the minute, according to orders, the nasty, and to the Americans pitifully 
disagreeable job, was begun. In a short time a white flag fluttered a sign 
of submission. But several had been killed 'and the populace that swarmed 
weeping about the American soldiers reproachfully cried: "Amerikanski 
nit dobra." And they did not feel at all glorious. 

177 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

A few minutes later to the immense disgust of the doughboys, a company 
of English Tommies who by all rules of right and reason should have been 
the ones to clean up the mutinous mess into which the British officers had 
gotten the S. B. A. L.'s, now hove into sight, coming up the recently bullet- 
whistling but now deadly quiet street, with rifles slung on their shoulders, 
crawling along slowly at sixty to the minute pace — instead of a riot-call 
double time, and singing their insulting version of "Over There the Yanks 
are Running, Running, everywhere, etc." And their old fishmonger reserve 
officer — he wore Colonel's insignia, wiped off his whiskey sweat in uncon- 
cealed relief. His battle of Archangel had been cut short by the Americans 
who had eagerly watched for the first sign of surrender by the foolish Rus- 
sian soldiers. The finishing touch was added to the short-lived S. B. A. L. 
mutiny when the tender-hearted but severe old General Maroushevsky pun- 
ished the thirteen ring-leaders of the S. B. A. L. soviet with death before a 
Russian firing squad. This mutiny was described in various ways and use 
was made of it by agitators in Archangel. The writer has followed the ac- 
count given to him by a machine gun sergeant who was handling one of 
the guns that day. His story seemed to contain the facts and feelings most 
commonly expressed by American officers and enlisted men who were in 
Archangel when the unfortunate incident took place. 

We are bound to comment that we believe it never would have occurred 
if a tactful, honest American officer had been in charge of the S. B. A. L. 
Americans know how tactless and bull-dozing some British orders — not 
many to be sure — could be. We fortunately had blufifs enough to offset the 
bull-dozings. A stormy threat by a sneering, drunken officer to turn his 
Canadian artillery on the bloomin' Yanks could be met by a cold-as-steel 
rejoiner that the British officer would please realize his drunken condition, 
and take back the sneering threat and come across with a reasonable order 
or suffer the immediate consequences. And then usually the two could co- 
operate. Such is a partnership war incident. 

Late in winter, after the success of the enemy in the Shenkursk area had 
given the secret sympathizers in Archangel renewed hope that Trotsky's 
army would at last crush the Allies before Archangel, rumor persistently 
followed rumor that Archangel was being honeycombed with spies. The 
sailors at Solombola wore darker scowls and strange faces began to appear 
at Smolny where the city's power station lay. In the Allied intelligence staff, 
that is secret information service, there was redoubled effort. We smile 
as we think of it. About the time of the Bolo General's brilliant smash 
through our line and capture of Bolsheozerki, menacing Obozerskaya, a 
few little outbursts were put down in Archangel. A few dozen rusty rifles 
were confiscated. Major Young laid elaborate plans for the, to him, imminent 
riot at Smolny. Soldiers who had learned from experience how difficult it 
was for their enemy to keep a skirmish line even when his officers were 
behind with pistol and machine gun persuasion, now grew sick of this imag- 
inary war in Archangel. One company going out to the front on March 
27th, was actually singing in very jubilation because they were getting away 
from battalion mess and "stand-to" for riot-scare. 

178 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

A distinguished citizen of the world, Sir Ernest Shakleton, visited the 
city of Archangel in the' winter. But no one ever saw him try to navigate 
Troitsky Prospect in his own invention, the Shakleton boot. How dear to 
his heart are the thoughts of that boot, as the doughboy recalls his first 
attempts to walk in them. The writer's one and only experience with them 
resulted in his taking all the road for steering his course and calling for 
the assistance of two brother officers — and "Chi'' was the strongest he had 
drunk, too. Of course the doughboy mastered the art of navigating in them. 
For down-right laughableness and ludicrity the Charlie Chaplin walk has 
nothing on the Shakleton gliding-wabble. The shimmy and the cheek dance 
would notj draw a second look while a stranger could grin audibly at the 
doughboy shufHe-hip-screwing aloilg in Shakleton's. Many a fair barishna 
on Troitsky Prospect held her furs up to conceal her irrepressible mirth at 
the sight. Aw, Shakletons. 

Allusion has been made to the battalion mess of bully and "M. and V." 
Another part of the British issue ration was dried vegetables, which the 
soldiers nicknamed "grass stew," much to the annoyance of one Lt. Blease, 
our American censor who read all our letters in England, to see that we did 
not criticise our Allies. One day at Soyla grass stew was on the menu, says a 
corporal. One of the men offered his Russian hostess a taste of it. She 
spat it out on the hay before the cow. The cow was insulted and refused 
either stew or hay. Much was done to improve the ration by General Iron- 
side who accepted with sympathy the suggestions of Major Nichols. Coffee 
finally took the place of tea. More bread and less hard tack was issued. 
Occasionally fresh meat was provided. But on the whole the British ration 
did not satisfy the American soldier. 

This leads to a good story. One aay during the Smolny riot-scare the 
writer with a group of non-commissioned officers in going all over the 
area to discover its possibilities for tactics and strategy, visited the Russian 
Veterinarian School. Here we saw the poor Russki pony in all stages of 
dissection, from spurting throat to disembowelment and horse-steaks. "Me 
for the good old bully," muttered a corporal devoutly, as he turned his head 
away. Here we remember the query of a corporal of Headquarters Com- 
pany who said: "Where is that half million dogs that were in Archangel 
when we landed last September?" The Russians had no meat market win- 
dows offering wieners and bologny but it sure was a tough winter for food 
in that city congested with a large refugee population. And dogs disappeared. 

Of the purely military life in Archangel in the long winter little can be 
said. The real work was done far out at the fronts anyway. No commander 
of a company of troops fighting for his sector of the line ever got any real 
assistance from Archangel except of the routine kind. Many a commendatory 
message and many a cheering visit was paid the troops by General Ironside 
but we can not record the same for Colonel Stewart. He was not a suc- 
cess as a commanding officer. He fell down weakly under his greal. re- 
sponsibility. Before the long winter was over General Richardson was sent 
up to Archangel to take command. 

179 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

During the early winter a doughboy in Archangel in this spirit of good 
humor wrote a letter published later in The Stars and Stripes in France. It 
is so good that we include it here. 

"Sometimes, about once or twice every now and then, copies of The 
Stars and Stripts find their way up here to No Woman's Land and are in- 
stantly devoured by the news-hungry gang, searching for information regard- 
ing their comrades and general conditions in France, where we belong, but 
through Fate were sent up to this part of the world to quell Bolshevism and 
guard the Northern Lights. 

"We are so far north that the doggone sun works only when it feels 
inclined to do so, and in that way it is like everything else in Russia. The 
moon isn't so particular, and comes up, usually backwards, at any time of 
the day or night, in any part of the sky, it having no set schedule, and often 
it will get lost and still be on the job at noon. Yes, we are so far north 
that 30 degrees below will soon be tropical weather to us, and they will 
have to build fires around both cows before they can milk them. Probably 
about next month at this time some one will come around and say we will 
be pulling out of here in a day or so, but then, the days will be six months 
long. 

"In our issue of your very popular paper we noticed a cartoon, "Pity 
the boys in Siberia," but what about us, Ed? Now, up here in this tough 
town there are 269,831 inhabitants, of which 61,329 are human beings and 
208,502 are dogs. Dogs of every description from the poodle to the St. 
Bernard and from the wolfhound to the halfbreed dachshund, which is half 
German and half Bolshevik and looks the part. 

"The wind whistles across the Dvina River like the Twentieth Century 
Limited passing Podunk, and snowflakes are as numerous as retreating Ger- 
mans were in France a few weeks ago. We have good quarters when we 
are here, thank fortune for that, and good food, when it comes up. If we 
can stand the winter we will be all jake, for a Yank can accustom himself 
to anything if he wants to. But just the same, we would like to see your 
artists busy on "The Boys in Northern Russia" and tell them not to leave 
out the word "Northern." 

"We also read in Tfie Stars and Stripes that the boys in Italy had some 
tongue twisters and brain worriers, but listen to this: Centimes and sous 
and francs may be hard to count, but did you ever hear of a rouble or a 
kopec? A kopec is worth a tenth of a cent and there are a hundred of them 
in a rouble. As you will see, that makes a rouble worth a dime, and to make 
matters worse all the money is paper, coins having gone out of circulation 
since the beginning of the mix-up. A kopec is the size of a postage stamp, 
a rouble looks like a United Cigar Store's Certificate, a 25-roublc note re- 
sembles a porous plaster and a 100-rouble note the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence. 

"When a soldier in search of a meal enters a restaurant, he says to the 
waitress, 'Barishna, kakajectyeh bifstek, pozhalysta,' which means 'An order 
of beefsteak, lady, please.' You see, you always say to a woman 'barishna' 
and she is always addressed in that manner. She will answer the hungry 

180 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

customer with, 'Yah ochen sojalaylu, shto unaus nyet yestnik prepasov 
siechas' (a simple home cure for lockjaw), meaning, "I am very sorry, but 
we are right out of food today.' He will try several other places, and if 
he is lucky he is apt to stumble across a place where he can get something 
to eat, but when he looks at the bill of fare and learns that it cost him about 
$7.50 for a sandwich and a cup of coffee, he beats it back to the barracks. 

"Every time you get on a street car ('dramvay') you have to count out 
60 kopecs for your fare, and most of us would rather walk than be jammed 
in the two-by-four buses and fish for the money. Before boarding a car 
each passenger usually hunts up a couple of five gallon milk cans, a market 
basket or two and a bag of smoked herring, so they will get their kopec's 
worth out of the ride, besides making the atmosphere nice and pleasant for 
the rest of the passengers. If you should see a soldier walking down thfi 
street with his nose turned up and his mouth puckered in apparent contempt, 
you would be wrong in thinking he was conceited, for if the truth be known 
he has probably just got his shirt back from the washwoman, and she has 
used fish-oil instead of soap and he is trying to escape the fumes. When 
you take your clothes to have them laundered and tell the woman to please 
omit the odor, she'll tell you that she has no soap and if you want them 
washed to your satisfaction please send in a cake. Anything in the world 
to keep your clothes from smelling of fish-oil, so you double-time back and 
get her the soap, and then she gives the kids a bath, and 'that's the end of 
your soap. 

"When a Russian meetsj another man he knows on the street, both lift 
hats and flirt with each other. If they stop to talk, they always shake hands, 
even if they haven't seen each other for fully twenty minutes. Then they 
simply must shake hands again when they leave. When a man meets a 
lady friend he usually kisses her hand and shows her how far he can bend 
over without breaking his suspenders. 'Ah,' he will say, 'yah ochen rrad 
vasveedyat, kak vui pazhavaetye ?' which in the United States means 'How 
do you do?' to which she will reply, 'Blogadaru vas, yah ochen korosho,' 
or 'very well, thank you.' It is the knockout. A fellow has to shake hands 
so much that some of them are getting the habit around the company. 

"And another thing, Ed, are they really holding a separate war up here 
for our benefit? Just because we weren't in on the big doings in France is 
no reason why they should run a post-season series especially for us. We 
appreciate the kindness and honor and all that, but what we want to know is 
where everybody gets that stuff. Believe me, after all the dope we got on 
the trenches, about pianos and wooden floors, steam heat, and other conven- 
iences, when we see ourselves on outpost duty with one blanket and a poncho, 
sleeping (not on duty, of course) in twenty-eight inches of pure ooooozy 
mud, which before we awaken turns into thin, fine ice, it makes us want to 
cry out and ask the universe what we have done to deserve this exile. 

"Now don't think, dear old Ed. that we are kicking. American soldiers 
never do. We just wanted to have something to write you about, to remind 
you that we ARE a part of the American E. F, although 'isolated.' 

181 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

"With best wishes to your paper and a Merry Christmas and a Happy 
New Year to all the boys, I'll close with the consoling assurance in my heart 
that we'll meet you back on Broadway, anyway. 

C. B. KNIGHT, Corp. "Hq" Co., 339th Inf., 

American E. F., Archangel, Russia." 



182 



XXII 

Winter On The Railroad 

We Come Under French Flag — Thanksgiving Day At Verst 455 — 
Exploration And Blockhouse Building — First Occupation Of Bol- 
SHEOZERKI — Airplane Bombs Our Own Front Line Troops — Year's 
End Push On Plesetskaya Fiasco — Nichols Makes Railroad Sector 
Impregnable — Bolo Patrol Blows Up Our Big Six — Heavy Drive By 
Reds At Winter's End — "I" Company Relieves French -Russian 
Force — Valorous Conduct Of Men Gives Lie To Charges Of Loss 
Of Morale. 

In the narrative telling of the fighting on the Vaga and Dvina, we have 
already seen that the Red Guards had disillusioned us in regard to the quiet 
winter campaign we hoped and expected. Now we shall resume the story of 
the Railroad, or Vologda Force, as it had become known, and tell of the 
attempted Allied push on Plesetskaya to relieve the pressure on the River 
Fronts. 

After our digging in at Verst 445 in early November, a Company of 
Liverpools came from Economia to aid the French infantry and American 
and French machine gunners, supported by French artillery, to hold that win- 
ter front. The American units who had fought on the railroad in the fall 
were all given ten days rest in Archangel. Soon the Americans were once 
more back on the front. And it started off uneventful. A French officer, 
Colonel Lucas, had come into command of the Vologda Force. American 
units were generously supplied with the French Chauchat automatic rifles, 
and ammunition for them, and with French rifles and tromblons to throw 
the rifle grenades. Earnest business of learning to use them. 

Those who were stationed at field headquarters of the Front Sector of the 
Vologda Force, which was at Verst 455, will recollect with great pleasure the 
Thanksgiving Day half -holiday and program arranged by Major Nichols, 
commanding the American forces. He gave us Miss Ogden, the Y. W. C. A. 
woman from d. o. U. S. A. to read President Wilson's proclamation. How 
strange it seemed to us soldiers standing there under arms. And Major 
Moodie the old veteran of many a British campaign, and friend of Kitchener, 
the good old story teller praised the boys and prayed with them. Major 
Nichols and Major Alabernarde spoke cheering and bracing words to the 
assembled American and French soldiers. It was an occasion that raised 
fighting morale. 

The President's Thanksgiving proclamation was transmitted to the Amer- 
ican troops in Russia through the office of the American Embassy. The 
soldiers listened intently to the words of Mr. De Witt C. Poole, Jr., the 
American Charge d'Affaires who since the departure of Ambassador Francis, 
was the American diplomatic representative in European Russia. His mes- 
sage was as follows : 

183 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

"The military Command has been asked to make this day a holiday 
for the troops, so far as military requirements permit, and to communi- 
cate to them upon an occasion fraught with tradition and historical 
memories, the hearty greetings of all Americans who are working with 
them in Northern Russia. 

"The American Embassy desires the troops to know that both here 
and at Washington there is a full understanding of the difficulties of 
the work which they are being called upon to do and a desire no less 
ardent than their own that they should realize as soon as possible the 
blessings of the peace which is foreshadowed by the armistice on the 
Western Front." 

The chief note in the President's proclamation which lingered on the 
doughboy's ear was as follows : 

"Our gallant armies have participated in a triumph which is not mar- 
red or stained by any purpose of selfish aggression. In a righteous 
cause they have won immortal glory and have nobly served their nation 
in serving mankind." 

Work of building blockhouses went rapidly forward under the steady 
work of the 310th Engineers and the cheerful labor of the infantrymen who 
found the occupation of swinging axes and hauling logs through the snow to 
be not unpleasant exercise in the stinging winter weather that was closing 
down. A commodious building began to go up at 455 for the Y. M. C. A. 
French-Russian force under a terrific bombardment and barrage of machine 
to use for winter entertainments for the men stationed in that stronghold. 

Exploration of the now more available winter swamp trails went on care- 
fully. The chain of lakes and swamps several miles to the west ran north 
from Sheleksa concentration camp of the Bolos to Bolsheozerki, parallel to 
the Railroad line of operations. This Bolsheozerki was an important point 
on the government road which went from Obozerskaya to Onega. It was 
thought wise to protect this village as in winter mail would have to be sent 
out of Archangel by way of Obozerskaya, via Onega, via Kem, via Kola, the 
open winter port on the Murmansk coast hundreds of miles away to the 
west and north. And troops might be brought in, too. A look at the map 
will discover the strategic value of this point Bolsheozerki. American and 
French troops now began to alternate in the occupation of that cluster of 
villages. 

A sergeant of "M'' Company might tell about the neat villages, about the 
evidences of a higher type than usual of agriculture in the broad clearing, 
about the fishing nets and wood cutters' tools, and last, but not least about 
the big schoolhouse and the winsome barishtta who taught the primary room. 

Nothing more than an occasional patrol or artillery exchange took place 
on the railroad although there was an occasional flurry when the British 
intelligence officers found out that the Reds were plotting a raid or a gen- 
eral attack. It was known that they had begun to augument their forces 
on our front. Sound of their axes had been as constant on the other side 
of No Man's Land as it had on our side. They were erecting blockhouses 
for the winter. Occasionally their airplanes exchanged visits with ours, 
always dropping a present for us. No casualties resulted from their bombs 

184 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

directed at us. Unfortunately one day our bombing plane mistook our 
front line for the Red front line and dropped two big bombs on our own 
position and caused one death and one severe wound. 

The accident happened just as an American company was being relieved 
by a French company. And it was a good thing the commander of the com- 
pany consumed the remainder of the day in getting his excited and enraged 
men back to Obozerskaya because by that time the men were cooled off 
and the nervous Royal Air Force had no occasion to use its rifles in self- 
defense as it had prepared to do. They wisely stayed inside, as in fact did 
the few Qther English sergeants and enlisted men at Obozerskaya that 
ticklish night. The few wild Yanks who roamed the dark, without pass, 
had all the room and road. There was a particularly good mission at once 
found for this American company on another front, whether by design or 
by coincidence. A board of officers whitewashed the Canadian ,flyers of the 
Royal Air Force and the incident was closed. 

Of course all the accidents did Hot happen to Americans. During the 
winter on the Railroad, a sad one happened to a fine British officer. A brood- 
ing enlisted man of the American medical corps went insane one dark night 
and craftily securing a rifle held up the first Englishman he found. He 
roundly berated the British officer with being the cause of the North Russian 
War on the Bolsheviki, told the puzzled but patiently listening officer to 
say a prayer and then suddenly blew off the poor man's head and himself 
went off his nut completely. 

With the beginning of the winter campaign Pletsetskaya's importance to 
the Red Army began to loom up. Trotsky's forces could be readily supplied 
from that city and his forces could be swiftly shifted from front to front 
to attack the widely dispersed forces of the Allied Expedition. It was seen 
now clearly that the fall offensive should have beeil pushed through to 
Plesetskaya by the converging Onega, Railroad and Kodish Forces. And 
plans were made to retrieve the error by putting on a determined push late 
in December to take Plesetskaya and reverse the strategic situation so as to 
favor the Allied Expeditionary Forces. 

The Onega Force was to make a strong diversion toward the Bblo 
extreme left; the Kodish Force was to smash through Kodish to Kochmas 
assisted by a heavy force of Russians and English operating on and through 
Gora and Taresevo, and thence to Pletsetskaya ; the French-trained company 
of Russian Courier-du-Bois were to go on snow shoes through the snow 
from Obozerskaya to the rear of Emtsa for a surprise attack; and timed 
with all these was the drive of the Americans and British Liverpools on the 
Railroad straight at the Bolo fortifications at Verst 443 and Emtsa. Study 
of the big map will show that the plan had its merits. 

There were one or two things wrong with the plan. One was that it 
underestimated the increased strength of the Bolshevik forces both in num- 
bers and in morale and discipline. The other was the erroneous estimate of 
the time required to make the distances in the deep snow. Of course it was 
not the fault of the plan that the information leaked out and disaffected 

185 



^X 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

men deserted the Allied Russian auxiliaries' ranks and tipped of? the push 
to the Bolsheviki. 

The story of the New Year's battles by "H" on the one hand and "K" 
on the other have been told. It remains to relate here the "railroad push" 
fiasco. The Courier-du-Bois got stuck in the deep snow, exhausted and 
beaten before they were anywhere near Emtsa. American Machine Gun 
men at Verst 445 front reported that S. B. A. L. deserters had gone over 
to the Bolo lines. The Reds on December 29th and 30th became very active 
with their artillery. Reports came in of the failure of the Russian-British 
force that was to attack Tarsevo, and of the counter attack of the Reds 
in the Onega Valley. So the Liverpools and the French company and Win- 
slow's "I" Company and Lt. Donovan's combination company of two platoons 
of "G" and "M" who were all set for the smash toward Emtsa and Pleset- 
skaya found their orders suddenly countermanded on December 31st and 
settled down to the routine winter defensive. 

In order to facilitate troop movements and to make command more com- 
pact, the French Colonel in command of the railroad force arranged that the 
Americans should man the sectors of defense during the month of February 
all alone and that the French battalion should occupy in March. This worked 
out fairly satisfactory. "L" Company and half of "E" Company, after rest 
at Archangel from their desperate work at Kodish, joined "I" Company and 
half of "G" Company on the railroad under Major Nichols, where an un- 
eventful but busy month was passed in patrolling, instruction and so forth. 

Every sector of the railroad front was made practically impregnable to 
infantry attack by the energetic work of "A" and "B" Company engineers 
and the Pioneer platoon of Headquarters Company. And the dugouts which 
they constructed at Verst 445 proved during the intermittent artillery shell- 
ing of January-March to be proof against the biggest H. E. the Bolo threw. 
Major Nichols sure drove the job of fortification through with thoroughness 
and secured a very formidable array of all sorts of weapons of defense. A 
great naval gun that could shoot twenty versts was mounted on an American 
flat car and taken to his popular field headquarters at Verst 455, where it was 
the pet of the crew of Russian sailors. And constant instruction and practice 
with the various weapons of the British, French and Russian types, which 
were in the hands of the Americans gave them occupation during the many 
days of tension on this winter front, where they daily expected the same 
thing to happen that was overpowering their comrades on the River Fronts. 
And when at the very end of the winter and the break of spring, the Reds 
did come in great force the defenses were so strong and well manned that 
they held at every point. 

In March the French had a little excitement while the battalion of 
Americans were at rest in Archangel. A daring Bolshevik patrol in force 
circumnavigated through the deep snow of the pine woods on skiis and sur- 
prised the poilu defenders of their favorite howitzer on the railway track, 
killing several and capturing the big six-inch trouble maker. They destroyed 
it by feeding it a German hand grenade and then made their getaway. Suc- 
cesses on other fronts seemed to stimulate the Bolos to try out the defenses 

186 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

oil this hitherto very quiet front. They gave the Frenchies lots of trouble 
with their raiding parties. Whether the fact that the French had local Rus- 
sian troops with them had anything to do with the renewal of activity is 
not provable, but it seems probable, judging from the hatred seen expressed 
between Bolos and anti-Bolsheviks on other fronts that winter. 

And before the month of March was gone. Major Nichols was hurried 
back to the Railroad Front, taking "L" and "E" Companies with him. The 
French-Russian forces were in trouble. They had lost the strategic Bol- 
sheozerki, story of the severe fighting about which will form a separate 
chapter. Rumor has it that the Russian troops on the front were demoralized 
and that the enemy would strike before the Americans could get there to 
relieve the French-Russian force. 

General Ironside himself went to the railroad and the new Bolsheozerki 
front and saw that quick action only could save the situation. He gave 
Major Nichols free hand with his battalion and released "E" Company which 
was on the Bolsheorzerki front by sending "M" Company to the desperate 
spot. Nichols with characteristic decisiveness determined to make the relief 
before the set time and have his own men meet the attack. It worked at 
all points. At Verst 445, the yery front, "I" Company gallantly went in to 
relieve the French and Russian under artillery barrage and a heavy machine 
gun barrage together with a heavy infantry attack on one flank. This com- 
pany which has been unjustly accused of having mutinied the day before at 
Archangel, was on this day and three succeeding days subjected to all the 
fury of attack that the Red Army commander had been mustering up for 
so many days to crush the French-Russian force. And "I" Company sup- 
ported by the French artillery, by machine gun and trench mortar men, stood 
the Reds ofif with great resolution and inflicted terrible losses. The rail- 
road front line was saved. The flank position gained by the Reds at Bol- 
sheozerki would be of doubtful value to them as long as the railroad sectors 
held. The stoutness of the American defenses and the stoutness of their 
morale had both been vindicated in terrific battle action. 

And hereafter any veteran of the winter campaign fighting the Bolsheviki, 
who still meets the false story of alleged mutiny of one of the companies 
of the 339th Infantry in Archangel, a false story that will not down even 
after emphatic denial by high army authorities who investigated the reports 
that slipped out to the world over the British cables, may ignore the charges 
as distortions which partisans who are pro-Bolshevik are in the habit of 
giving currency with the vain idea of trying to show that the Bolshevik 
propaganda convinced the American soldier. They may refer to this valor- 
ous battle action of the alleged mutinous company and to shining examples 
of its morale and valor in the long fall and winter campaign fighting the Bol- 
sheviki. The story of the discontent which gave rise to the false story is 
told elsewhere. 

In this connection the editors wish to add further that in their estimation 
the morale of this fighting company and of the other American units was 
remarkably good. And the story of this "I" Company going in to relieve the 
French-Russian force under a terrific bombardment and barrage of machine 

187 



• THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

guns, the distant roar of which was heard for three days and nights by the 
writer who was on an adjoining front, has not been told with complete 
emphasis to the good fighting spirit of Captain Winslow's men. We would 
like to make it stronger. 

The winter drive of the Reds on the Railroad merged into their spring 
raids and threats. The French soldiers did not return again to the front 
and the Americans stayed on. Major Nichols began breaking in units of 
the new Archangel government troops who served alongside the Yanks and 
were in the spring to relieve the American entirely. 



188 



XXIII 

BOLSHEOZEEKI 

BOLSHEOZERKI OnE-ReEL THRILLER — BRILLIANT STRATEGY Of TrOTSKY's 

Northern Army Commander — General Ironside And Major Nichols 
Take Personal Command Of Critical Situation — Twelve Miles Out 
In Woods With Five Pieces Of Artillery — "M" Company Relieves 
"E" — Little Force Beleagured For Days — Three Invincible Days 
And Nights — Reds Ambush Several Parties — Enemy Baffled And 
Punished Dreadfully — American Pluck And Luck Triumph. 

Bolsheozerki was a one reel thriller. Kodish had been a repetition of night- 
mares both for the Reds and the Yanks. Shenkursk had been a five act 
drama the tragic end of which had been destined when the Americans were 
ordered to dig in so far forward, isolated from the supporting forces. This 
last front, Bolsheozerki, sprang suddenly into acute importance in March 
just at the end of winter and was savagely fought. 

The brilliant strategy of the Bolo Northern Army commander. General 
Kuropatkin, in sending a Bolo general with a great flying wedge between 
the Onega Force and the Railroad Force was executed with a surprisingly 
swift flank movement that caught the French napping at the lightly held 
Bolsheozerki position, March 16-17. Their force was annihilated, a con- 
voy was captured, and the old priest of the area came fleeing to Obozer- 
skaya with news of this enemy drive that would soon, unless checked, cap- 
ture Obozerskaya, and thus pierce a vital point of the whole Archangel 
defense. The railroad front sectors would be cut off, Seletskoe would be 
pinched, and the River Fronts taken in rear if Obozerskaya with its stores, 
munitions and transportation fell into the hands of the Bolsheviki. 

General Ironside hastened to Obozerskaya to take personal command. 
The French Colonel commanding there had himself been cut off at Chinova 
on the west side of Bolsheozerki and had failed to fight his way through the 
next day, March 18th, with an escort of "H" Company men, story of which 
is related elsewhere. Ironside ordered up three Companies of Yorks and a 
Polish Company, who had been on the road from Onega to Bolsheozerki 
to join the Americans at Chinova for a smash at the gathering Reds in Bol- 
sheozerki. Their gallant but futile fight with its hard losses on March 23rd, 
from the enemy fire and winter frost has been told. Meanwhile General 
Ironside hurried out an American company from Archangel together with 
an Archangel Regiment Company and eighty Yorks and some of the French 
Legion Courier du Bois to make an attack on the Reds at the same time on 
their other flank. But the Reds had their artillery all set to command the 
road at Verst 19 and threw the Russian troops into confusion with severe 
losses. "E" Company of Americans resolutely floundered for hours through 
the five-foot snow to reach a distant viewpoint of the village of Bolsheozerki 
where they could hear the furious action between "H" and the Reds on the 

189 



,. THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

farther side, but by field telephone, were ordered by Colonel Guard to return 
to Verst 18 on the road and dig in. 

For a few days both sides used the winter sleigh roads for all they were 
worth in bringing up artillery and supplies and men and wire, and so forth. 
The Reds had sixty versts to haul their loads but they had the most horses, 
which they used without mercy. An American soldier who was ambushed 
and taken prisoner during this fighting says that he never saw before nor 
since so many dead horses, starved and overdriven, as he saw on the winter 
trail south from Bolsheozerki. The Reds brought up artillery enough to 
cover approaches to both their west and east fronts where the Allied forces 
were menacing them. 

Ironside ordered out five pieces of French-Russian artillery a hazardous 
but necessary move. These guns were set along the snowpacked broad 
corduroy highway near Verst 18, twelve miles from Obozerskaya, and four 
miles from the overwhelming force of Bolsheviks. Day and night the old 
howitzer, with airplane observation, roared defiance at Bolsheozerki and the 
Russian 75's barked viciously first at the village positions of the Reds and 
then at their wood's artillery and infantry positions which the Reds were 
pushing forward at this devoted Allied force that stood resolutely between 
them and Obozerskaya. 

Fresh companies of Americans and Russians relieved those who were 
shivering and exhausted in the snow camp at Verst 18. Company "C," 310th 
Engineers platoon, hastily threw up barricades of logs for the doughboys 
and before the day of attack, had completed two of the several projected 
blockhouses. Part of them, who had not been sent back to build the second 
defense position that now seemed inevitable, were found with the dough- 
boys, rifle in hand, during the desperate days that followed. The company 
of Yanks who now took over the active defense of this camp, "M" Company, 
was a resourceful outfit which soon improved its barricades and built brush 
shelters within which they could conceal their warm fires. By their reputa- 
tion as fighters and by their optimism they won the spirited support of the 
green Russian supporting company. And the machine gun crews of Russians 
who stood with the Americans at the critical front and rear road positions 
did themselves proud. 

Every day made the Verst 18 position less hazardous. The Reds made 
a mistake in waiting to mass up a huge force, seven thousand — their 
prisoners and their own newspapers afterward admitted. If they had 
struck quickly after March 23rd the Allied force would have soon been out 
of ammunition and been compelled to retire. But during the days devoted 
to massing up the Red forces and working around through the deep snow 
to attack the rear of the Verst 18 camp, the Allied force of two hundred 
Americans and four hundred Allied troops, mostly Russians, were stocked 
up with food and munitions and artillery shells sufficient to stand against 
a desperate, continuous onslaught. And they did. 

Came then the three days' continuous attack by the enemy in his deter- 
mined attempt to gain possession of the road so as to be able to move his 
artillery over it to attack Obozerskaya. His men could travel light through 

190 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

the woods on skiis but to get artillery and the heavy munitions across he 
must have that one road. He must first dispose of the stubborn force in 
the road at Verst 18. For this attack, he used three regiments. The 2nd 
Moscow, whose Commissar we took prisoner the first day; the 96th Saratov 
whose commanding officer was shot from his white horse the second day; 
and the 2nd Kasan. 

The first day's fight began, on the morning of the last day of March 
with a surprise attack at the rear, cutting our communications off, ambushing 
two parties of officers and men, and threatening to capture the two 75's 
which were guarded by a single platoon of "M" Company and two Rus- 
sian machine guns. The artillery officer reversed his guns and gave the enemy 
direct fire, shrapnel set for muzzle burst. Another platoon reinforced the 
one and a Lewis gun Corporal distinguished himself by engaging the two 
Bolo machine guns that had been set in the road to the rear. The guns 
were held. 

Meanwhile under cover of this attack at the rear a heavy assault was 
delivered against the forward blockhouses and barricades. Fortunately the 
Reds directed their attack at the points held by the Americans rather than 
at the four flank positions held by the green Archangel troops. The shoot- 
ing was good that day for the veteran Yanks and they repulsed all attacks 
at front and rear with terrible losses to the enemy. Night found the Amer- 
icans shaking hands with themselves for being in a tightly fortified place and 
carrying plenty more ammunition to every firing point where the enemy was 
expected to appear again the next day. According to the prisoners taken 
this was only a preliminary attack to develop our lines of fire. The next day 
he would envelop the little force in great numbers. 

He did. At day-break, 3 :30 a. m., April 1st, he threw his weight into 
three waves of assault on the front line and attacked later in the rear. The 
stoutly fortified men did not budge but worked every deathdealing weapon 
with great severity. Rifle grenades came into use as the enemy by sheer 
weight of masses surged within their 200-yard range. The machine guns 
faltered oftly once and then a Yankee Corporal, William Russell, Company 
"M" 339th Infantry, won for himself a posthumous American citation and 
D. S. C. for his heroic deed in regaining fire control by engaging the enemy 
machine gun which crawled up to short range in the thick woods with his 
Lewis gun. The Russian artillery observer distinguished himself by his 
accuracy in covering the enemy assaulting lines with shrapnel. As on the 
preceding day every attacking line of the enemy was repulsed. And darkness 
closed the scene at 9 :00 p. m. with the little force still intact but standing to 
arms all night, front, flanks and rear. 

The cold was severe but the Bolsheviki lying on their arms out in the 
snow where their assaulting lines faltered and dug in, suffered even more 
and many crawled in to give themselves up rather than freeze. Back to 
their camp they could not go for they had been promised the usual machine 
gun reception if they retired from the fight. That probably accounts for 
their commanding officer's riding up on his white horse to his death. He 

191 



* THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

thought his men had won their objective when fire ceased for an hour in the 
middle of the day, and he rode almost to our barricade. 

This was the fiercest fighting. The all night's vigil did not bring a renewal 
of the attack till after the Bolo artillery gave the position two thorough 
rakings which destroyed one of the barricades and drove every one to shelter 
behind the pine trees. Then the infantry attack petered out before noon. 
This was the day that "H" Company and the Yorks again attacked on the 
other side of Bolsheozerki, with the severe losses mentioned elsewhere. But 
their attack helped the badly wearied "M" Company who stood bearing the 
brunt of attack in the Bolo's road to Obozerskaya. Their artillery vigor- 
ously shelled the Reds in Bolsheozerki and felt out his advance lines with 
patrols but were content mainly to stand fast to their works and congratu- 
late themselves that their losses had been so slight after so terrific a struggle. 
The horse shoes had again been with that outfit of Americans. Three dead, 
three missing in action, one wounded and three shell shocked. The Yorks 
and Russians suffered no casualties. The ground was covered with Bolshevik 
dead. 

On the night of April 4th the American Company was relieved by a com- 
pany of Yorks and an additional company of Russians, and for a few more 
days the Bolos occupied Bolsheozerki but they had shot their bolt. They 
made no more attempts to break through to the railroad and take Obozer- 
skaya. Savagely the Red Guards had three times resisted attempts to dis- 
lodge them from Bolsheozerki. Just as stubbornly and with terrible deadli- 
ness the little force at Verst 18 had held the Reds in Bolsheozerki when 
they tried to move upon Obozerskaya. And when the April sun began to 
soften the winter roads into slush he had to feint an attack on Volshenitsa 
and escape between two days from Bolsheozerki, returning to Shelaxa. 

The Americans had never had such shooting. They knew the enemy 
losses were great from the numbers of bodies found and from statements 
of prisoners and deserters. Later accounts of our American soldiers who 
were ambushed and captured, together with statements that appeared in 
Bolshevik newspapers placed the losses very high. The old Russian general 
massed up in all over seven thousand men in this spectacular and well-nigh 
successful thrust. And his losses from killed in action, wounded, missing 
and frost-bitten were admitted by the Bolshevik reports to be over two 
thousand. 

It was in this fighting that Bolshevik prisoners were taken in almost 
frozen condition to the American Y. M. C. A. man's tent for a drink of hot 
chocolate which he was serving to the Americans, Yorks, Russians and all 
during those tight days. And the genial Frank Olmstead was recognized by 
the prisoners as a "Y" man who had been in the interior of Russia in the 
days when Russians were not fighting Americans but Germans. 

To the doughboy or medic or engineer who stood there at bay those three 
invincible days, Bolsheozerki means deep snow, bitter cold, cheerless tents, 
whiz-bangs, high explosive, shrap, rat-tat-tat interminable, roar and crash, 
and zipp and pop of explosive bullet, with catch-as-catch-can at eats, arms 
lugged off with cases of ammunition, constant tension, that all ended up with 
luck to the plucky. 

192 




Boh Commander's Sword Taken in Baffle of Bolsheozerki 



U. S OFFICIAL PHOTO 




After Eight Days — Near Bolsheozerki 



U S OFFICIAL PHOTO 




Wood Pile Strong Point — Verst ^45 



U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO 




Verst i55 — "Fort Nichols" 



U S. OFFICIAL PHOTO 




• Back from Patrol 




Our Shell Bumfs Xear Bolo Skirmish Liue 



U S. OFFICIAL PHOTO 




Blockhouse, Shred Makrenga 



XXIV 

Letting Go The Tail-Holt 

Preparing For Spring Defensive — River Situation Ticklish — Must Jlauy 
Till Our Gunboats Can Get Up — "F" Company Crosses River On 
Cracking Ice — Canadian Artillery Well Placed And Effectively 
Handled Holds Off Red Flotilla — Engineers Help Clear Dvina 
With Dynamite — Joyful Arrival Of British Gunboat "Glow Worm" 
— We Retake Ignatavskaya — Amusing Yet Dangerous Fishing Party 
— British Relief Forces Arrive On Vaga — Toulgas Is Lost And 
Retaken — British-Russian Drive At Karpogora Fails — Old White 
Guard Pinega Troops Hold Their City Against Red Drive Again — 
Kodish And Onega Fronts Quiet — Railroad Front Active But No 
Heavy Fighting — General Richardson Helps Us Let Go Tail-Holt. 

Many an uncomfortable hour in the winter General Ironside and his staff 
spent studying over the spring defense against the Reds. It was well known 
that the snows would melt and ice would loosen on the distant southern 
river valley heights and as customary the river from Kotlas to Toulgas 
would be open, to the Red gunboats several days before the ice would be 
released in the lower river stretches, necessary to permit the Allied fleets 
of gunboats to come in from the Arctic Ocean and go up to help defend 
the advanced positions on the Dvina and Vaga upper river fronts. It was 
feared that Red heavy artillery would blow our fortified positions into bits, 
force our evacuation at a time when there was no such thing as transporta- 
tion except by the rivers. These would be for a few days in control of the 
Reds. Thus our Americans and Allies who had so gallantly reddened the 
snows with their stern defense in the winter might find themselves at the 
mercy of the Reds. 

Every effort was made to improve the shell-proof dugouts. Engineers 
and doughboys slaved at the toil. Wire was hurried for the double apron 
defenses on which to catch the mass attacks of the Bolsheviki. Supplies 
were stored at every point for sixty days so that a siege could be stood. And 
an Allied fleet was arranged to come as soon as the icebreakers could get 
them through the choked-up neck of the White Sea. And meanwhile the 
Canadian artillery was strengthened with the hope that they could oppose 
the Red fleets and delay them till the river opened to pas'Sage of the Allied 
fleets coming to save the troops. 

The battle-worn veterans of "A" and "D" were strengthened by the 
men of "F" Company who had come into the front lines in March and now 
were bearing their full share and then some of the winter's end defense 
against the Red pressure. Cossack allies and Archangel regiments also 
were added to the Russian quotas that had done service on those fronts in 
the winter. Russian artillery units also were sent to Toulgas. In every 

193 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

way possible these desperate fronts were prepared to meet the heralded 
spring drive of the Red Guards. 

As the ice and snow daily disappeared more and more Americans began 
arranging "booby traps" and dummy machine gun posts in the woods. These 
machine gun posts were prepared by fastening a bucket of water with a 
small hole punched in the bottom above another bucket which was tied 
to the trigger of a machine gun or rifle. The amount of water could 
be regulated so as to cause the gun to fire at regular intervals of from 
thirty minutes to an hour. Through the woods we strung concealed wires 
and sticks attached to hand grenades, the slightest touch of which would 
cause them to explode. Meanwhile in the rear, "B" Company Engineers, 
who had relieved "A" Company Engineers, were busily engaged in stuffing 
gun cotton, explosives and inflammable material in every building and shed 
at Kitsa and Maximovskaya. 

On April nineteenth the ice in the Vaga was heaving and cracking. 
Kitsa, the doomed Kitsa, where the Yanks and Scots and Canadians altern- 
ately had held on so many days, expecting any time another overwhelming 
attack, was at this time being held by "F"' Company. But the British officer 
in command had delayed his order to evacuate till Captain Ramsay was 
barely able to lead his men across. One more foolhardy day of delay 
would have lost the British officer a company of much needed troops. 

Sharp on the hour of midnight April 19th "F" Company silently with- 
drew from the front line positions and started across the river, the ice 
of which was already beginning to move. As they marched through the 
inky darkness of the woods the dummy guns began discharging which kept 
the enemy deceived as to our movements. 

As the last man crossed the river a rocket went up as a signal to the 
Engineers that "F" Company and the other infantry units had arrived 
safely at Ignatavskaya. The following moment the entire surrounding 
country shook to a series of terrific explosions both at Kitsa and Maximov- 
skaya and then a great red glare emblazoned the sky as the two oil soaked 
villages burst into flame. The engineers quickly joined the party and from 
then on until the following morning they continued in a forced march 
back to prepared positions at Mala-Beresnik and Nizhni Kitsa on opposite 
sides of the river about eight versts in rear of Kitsa. 

The positions here were a godsend after our experience of the past 
two months in the open and exposed positions further up the river. Here 
for more than two months hundreds of Russian laborers had been busily 
engaged in stringing mile after mile of barbed wire about the positions 
and constructed practically bomb-proof shelters. Furthermore, our artillery 
commanded] a good view of the river, which was all important, for as the 
ice was now moving out we knew that the enemy gunboats would soon come 
steaming down river with nothing but land batteries to stop them since 
the mouth of the Dvina and the White Sea would not be free from ice 
for several weeks to come, thus making it impossible for our gunboats 
there to get down to these positions. 

194 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

And the ice went out of the upper river with a crunching roar. The 
Reds came on with their water attacks, but with little success. The Canadian 
artillery was well prepared and so well manned that it beat the Red flotilla 
badly. Forunately the Bolo gunners were not as accurate as on former 
occasions. So losses from this source were comparatively few. 

The lower Dvina was unusually rapid in clearing this spring. The 310th 
Engineers had assisted by use of dynamite. The Red army command had 
counted on three weeks to press his water attacks. But by May tenth 
gunboats had gone up the Dvina to help batter Toulgas into submission. 
And when on May seventeenth Commander Worlsley of Antarctic fame 
went steaming up the Vaga on board the "Glow Worm," a heavily armed 
river gunboat, the worries of the Americans in the battle-scarred Vaga 
column were at an end. 

With the gunboats now at their disposal the morale of all ranks was 
greatly improved and it was thereupon decided to retake the position at 
Ignatavskaya immediately across the river from Kitsa, which position was 
held by the enemy, giving him the opportunity of sheltering thousands of 
his troops there with his artillery on the opposite side of the river to 
further protect them. 

On the morning of May 19th several strong patrols went forward into 
the woods in the direction of the enemy and quickly succeeded in gaining 
contact with his outposts. Tl^e Bolo must have sensed some activity for 
at 10 :30 a. m. he commenced a violent artillery bombardment. Shortly 
thereafter his airplanes came flying over our lines and machine-gunned our 
trenches. The men had long since become so accustomed to this little 
by-play that they gave it littl^ consideration other than keeping well under 
cover. Others even gave it less regard, as the following amusing incident 
indicates : 

During the shelling of that morning a great number of enemy shells 
exploded in the river and these explosions immediately brought large num- 
bers of fish to the surface. The company cook, seeing such a splendid 
opportunity to replenish the company larder, crawled down to the edge of 
the river, jumped into a rowboat and soon was occupied in filling his boat 
with fish, utterly disregardful of the intermittent shelling and sniping. That 
evening, needless to say, the cook was the most popular man in his company. 

At 9:30 p. m. the boats brought down battaHon after battalion of fresh 
Russian troops from Zaboria who were landed near our positions under 
cover preparatory to the attack on Ignatavskaya. It might be well to mention 
here that at this time of the year the Arctic sun was practically shining 
the entire twenty-four hours, only about midnight barely disappearing below 
the rim of the horizon, making it dark enough in the woods in the dull 
twilight to advance without observation. At midnight the infantry pushed 
forward along the road toward the Bolo outpost positions. American 
infantry also covered the opposite bank of the river. 

Our guns on the river in conjunction with the land batteries immediately 
opened up with a terrific bombardment, shelling the Bolo positions for twenty 
minutes until the infantry had gained the outposts of the village and a few 

195 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

moments later when the barrage had lifted they entered Ignatavskaya, 
which had been in the hands of the enemy for more than a month. Our 
attack took the enemy clearly by surprise, for in the village itself we found 
great numbers of enemy dead and wounded, who had been caught under 
our curtain of fire from the artillery, and for the next several days we 
were busy in bringing in other wounded men and prisoners from the sur- 
rounding woods, estimated at more than two hundred alone. 

We quickly consolidated the new position with our old ones and patiently 
sat tight, awaiting the coming of the new British reinforcements, which 
had by this time landed in Archangel. From this time on our fighting was 
practically at an end on the Vaga River. 

Over on the Dvina during the months of March and April, "B" and "C" 
Company were still holding forth at Toulgas and Kurgomin far up the 
river. They were daily employed in, patrol and defensive duty. The Bolo 
had acquired a healthy respect for these positions after his terrible repulses 
on this front during the winter. 

In fact, so strong was this position here that by April we had gradually 
begun relieving American troops at Toulgas and supplanting them, about 
five to one, by fresh Russian troops from Archangel, who subsequently fell 
before the most vicious and deadly of all the enemy weapons — Bolshevik 
Propaganda, 

During the night of April 25 and 26, these Russian troops who had been 
secretly conniving with the Red spies and agents, suddenly revolted, turned 
their guns on their own as well as the British officers there, and allowed the 
enemy lurking in the woods to walk unmolested into the positions that 
months of shelling and storm attacks had failed to shake. True, some of 
the Russians, especially the artillery men, remained loyal' and by super- 
human efforts succeeded in withdrawing with some equipment and guns 
to Shushuga on the same side of the river. Yorkshire troops and machine 
gunners were quickly rushed up to bolster up these loyal men and a few 
days later retribution swift and terrible was visited upon the deserters and 
their newly made comrades. 

Shortly prior to the defection of the troops in Toulgas, and linknown 
to them, a battery of large six-inch guns had been brought up to the artillery 
position at Kurgomin on the opposite side of the river, which, with the 
guns already in position there, made it one of our strongest artillery posi- 
tions. The enemy was given ample time in which to fully occupy the 
position at Toulgas, which he at once proceeded to do. 

On the 26th day of April our artillery/ suddenly opened fire on Toulgas 
and at the same time dropped a curtain barrage on the far side of the 
village, making retreat practically impossible. During this time thousands 
of shells of high explosive gas and shrapnel were placed in the village 
proper with telling effect. Unable to go forward or back, we inflicted 
enormous losses upon the enemy, and shortly thereafter the loyal Russians, 
supported by English infantrymen, entered the village, putting the remaining 
numbers to flight and once again Toulgas was ours. 

196 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

With the settling of the roads and trails the enemy was able to mass 
up forces and continue his harrying tactics but could make no impression 
on the Allied lines. Americans were gradually withdrawn from the front 
lines and Russians served along with the Liverpools and Yorks, who were 
now looking every week for the promised volunteers from England who 
were to relieve not only the Americans but the Liverpools and Yorks and 
other British troops in North Russia. "F" Company was active in patrolling 
during the month of May and reported last combat patrol with enemy near 
Kitsa on May twentieth. This company of Americans had been the last 
one to get into action in the fall and enjoyed the distinction of being the 
last one to leave the front, leaving on June 5 for Archangel. 

Meanwhile the spring drive of the Red Guards who had massed up near 
Trufanagora on the Pinega River was menacing Pinega. After the Americans 
had been withdrawn from that area in March for duty on another front, 
Pinega forces under command of Colonel Deliktorski were augmented by 
the previously mentioned "Charlie" Tschaplan, now a Russian colonel with 
three companies, and supported by another section of Russian artillery. 
Also an old British veteran of the Mesopotamian campaign, personal friend 
of General Ironside, was sent out to Leunova to take command of a joint 
drive at the Bolsheviki. He had with him the well-known Colonel Edwards 
with his Asiatic troops, the Chinese coolies who had put on the S. B. A. L. 
uniform, and a valorous company of British troops equipped with skiis 
and sleds to make the great adventurous forest march across the broad 
base of the big inverted V so as to cut the Reds off far in their rear near 
Karpogora. 

But that British-Russian adventure resulted disastrously. Two British 
officers lost their lives and their troops were nearly frozen in the woods 
and badly cut up by the Reds who had been all set for them with a mur- 
derous battery of machine guns. Too late the British-Russian command 
of the Pinega Valley found that the Americans had been right in their 
strategy which had not failed to properly estimate the Bolo strength and 
to properly measure the enormous labor and hardship of the cross-forest 
snows. Again the enthusiastic and fearless but woefully reckless Russian 
Colonel and English Colonel threw their men into death traps as they had 
done previously on other fronts. With success in defense the Reds gained 
their nerve back and again, as in December, January and February, began 
a drive on Pinega. 

Then the stoutness of the city's White Guard defenses and their morale 
was put to the test. "K" Company men at Kholmogori waited with anxiety 
for the decision, for if Pinega fell then,. Red troops would press down the 
river to threaten Kholmogori, which, though safe from winter attack 
because of the blockhouses built by American Engineers and doughboys, 
would be at the mercy of the gunboats the Reds were reported to have rigged 
up with guns sent over from Kotlas. But the Pinega artillery and machine 
guns and the stout barricades of the Pelegor and Kuligor infantrymen held 
out, though one of the gallant Russian officers, who had won the admiration 
of the Americans in the winter by continuing daily on duty with his machine 

197 



^ THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

gun company after he had been wounded severely in the arm, now fell 
among his men. 

Later Allied gunboats ascended the Pinega River and that area was 
once more restored to safety. Spring thaw-up severed the Red communica- 
tions with Kotlas, which was on the Dvina. The Bolsheviki in the upper 
Pinega could no longer maintain an offensive operation. Archangel was 
relieved from the menace on its left. 

With the Vaga and Dvina Rivers now so well protected by the naval 
forces of the Allies, the Bolo drives up the Kodish-Seletskoe road were 
now no longer of much strategic importance to them. In the latter part 
of the winter they had hopes of themselves controUing the water. Then 
they had put on drives at Shred Mekhrenga and at the Kodish front but 
with severe losses and no gains. Now in the spring the warfare was 
reduced to combat patrol actions with an occasional raid, most of the aggres- 
sive being taken by our Allies, the Cossacks, and Russian Archangel troops. 

On the Onega the spring was very quiet after the Reds withdrew their 
huge force from Bolsheozerki April 19. They withdrew under cover of 
a feinted attack in force on Volshenitsa, which was on the other flank of 
the railroad force. With the opening of Archangel harbor the Onega- 
Oborzerskaya road was no longer of so vital importance to us and the 
Reds' one savage thrust at it just at the close of winter, as related already, 
was their last drive. "H" Company had a quiet time during the remaining 
April and May days. And that company of men deserved the rest. 

On the railroad the coming of spring meant the renewal of activities. 
For us it meant constant combat patrols and daily artillery duels. How-' 
ever, the Bolshevik seemed to be discouraged over his failure at the end 
of winter. His heralded May Day drive did not materialize. We brought 
our Russian infantrymen and machine gunners up to the front sectors, 
gradually displacing Americans until finally on May seventh Major 
Nichols was relieved at Verst 455 — it should have been re-christened Fort 
Nichols — by Colonel Akutin, whose Russian troops took over the active 
defense of the front, with the Americans at Obozerskaya in reserve. At 
this place and at Bolsheozerki, "G", "L", "M", "I", and "E" Companies 
in the order named at the end of May, together with machine gun company 
platoons, were relieved by British and Russian troops. American Engineers 
also withdrew from this front just about the time that the First Battalion 
and "F" Company were embarking from Beresnik and "K" Company was 
steaming out of Yemeskoe and Kholmogori for Archangel. Most of the 
boys of the First Battalion had been up the river for months and had 
never seen the streets of Archangel. 

One of the interesting features of the spring defensive was the arrival of 
General Wilds P. Richardson from France to take command of all American 
forces during the remainder of the time we were in North Russia. He 
arrived on a powerful ice-breaker which cut its way into Archangel on 
April seventeenth. At that time we were still running trains across the Dvina 
River on the railroad track laid on the ice, and continued to do so for 
several days. 

198 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

General Richardson, veteran of many years of service in Alaska, imme- 
diately madei his way to the various fronts. At Verst 455 on the railroad 
he said in part to the soldiers assembled there for his inspection : 

"When I was detailed to come to North Russia, General Pershing, 
Commander-in-Chief of the A. E. F., told me that he desired me to 
come up to command the troops, help out if I could, and to cheer them 
up, as he had an idea that you thought you had been overlooked and 
forgotten, and were not part of the A. E. F. When I arrived here I 
found a telegram from General Pershing stating briefly all that I could 
have said, more and better, and I only want to emphasize to you that 
which was sent out and published, that your comrades in France have 
been doing wonderful work just as well as you have up here. Your 
people are pleased and proud of you. They have not forgotten you, 
nor has the A. E. F. in France. They want to see you come home as 
soon as you can, with the right spirit and without any act by company or 
individual that you will be ashamed of. You are here to do a certain 
duty, determined by the highest authority in our country and in others 
of our AUies, and by the best minds in the world in connection with 
this great war which we have been waging and were drawn into through 
no fault of our own. 

"While the 339th and other detachments that have come with them 
to perform a share of the work in North Russia seemed far away and 
at times you perhaps felt lonely and that you were not getting the same 
consideration, you still were as much a part of the game^ as far as 
forces stand, as any portion of the Western Front. 

"Remember, you are Americans in a foreign country taking part 
in a great game, making history which will be written and talked of for 
generations, doing your duty as best you can so as to maintain the 
highest standard that the Army has attained in Europe." 

General Pershing's telegram as transmitted to the Americans fighting the 
Bolsheviki in; North Russia was as follows: 

"Inform our troops that all America resounds with praise of the 
splendid record that the American Expeditionary Forces have made. 
The reputation of the American soldier for valor and for splendid 
discipline under the most trying conditions has endeared every member 
of the Expeditionary Forces not only to his relatives and friends but 
to all Americans. Their comrades in France have not forgotten that the 
Americans in Northern Russia are part of the American Expeditionary 
Forces, and we are proud to transmit to you the generous praise of 
the American people. I feel sure that every soldier in Northern Russia 
will join his comrades here in the high resolve of returning to America 
with unblemished reputations. I wish every soldier in Northern Russia 
to know that I fully appreciate that his hardships have continued long 
after those endured by our soldiers in France and that every effort is 
being made to relieve the conditions in the North at the earliest possible 
moment." 

The Americans had let go the tail holt. The spring defensive had been 
surprisingly easy after the desperate winter defensive with the persistently 
heralded threats of Trotsky's Northern Army to punish the invaders with 
annihilation. In fact, there was a suspicion that the Reds were content 
to merely harry the Americans, but not to take any more losses going against 
them, preferring to wait till they had gone and then deal with the Archangel 
regiments of some twenty-five thousand and the British troops coming out 

199 



, THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

from England. Probably if the truth were known Kolchak and Denikin 
were in the spring of 1919 taking much of Trotsky's attention. They were 
getting the grain fields of Russia that the Reds needed, which was of more 
importance than the possession of the Archangel province. 

Then there was the political side of the case. The Peace Conference 
was struggling with the Russian problem. Lenine and Trotsky could well 
afford to deal not too violently and crushingly with the Allied troops in the 
North of Russia while they were with both open and underground diplomacy 
and propaganda seeking to get recognition of their rule. 

Anyway, we found ourselves letting go that tail holt which in the winter 

had seemed to be all that the Detroit News cartoonist pictured it, "H to 

hang on, and death to let loose." And we did not get many more bad 
scratches or bites from the Bolo bob-cat. 



THE HARD JOB IS TO LET CO 








"/< iV hill to hang on, but it's death to let loose' 



300 



XXV 

The 310th Engineers 

Engineers Busy Right From Start — Seen On All Fronts — Great Aid 
To Doughboys — Occasionally Obliged To Join Firing Line — Colonel 
Morris Gives Interesting Summary Of Engineer Work — General 
Ironside Pays Fine Tribute To 310th Engineer Detachment, 

The 310th Engineers went into quarters at Bakaritza, September 7th, where 
it was said German agents two years before had blown up Russian muni- 
tions even as they had blown many a dock in our own country. They looked 
mournfully at the potato fields the retreating Bolos had robbed and destroyed 
and they fished for the one hundred motor trucks said to have been sunk in 
the Dvina River by the Reds, hoping to get the reward oflfered by the British. 

They fixed up their quarters, built sheds for the commissary and quarter- 
master stores of the Americans and began preparations for their construc- 
tion work upon the Railroad and River fronts. On a dark night in October 
one platoon crossed the Dvina in the storm thinking of G. W. crossing the 
Delaware, and took station in Solombola and began building "Camp Michi- 
gan." The third week in October the engineers saw the Russki sleighs 
running about, but then came an Indian Summer-like period. The greater 
part of November was spent in making the Russian box cars habitable for the 
soldiers and engineers on the Railroad front. 

One American company on the railroad had hated to give up its taploo<- 
shkas which they had fitted up for quarters, to the British units that had 
been weeks at Archangel while they were overworked at the front. But 
Col. Stewart raised a fine hope. He ordered a detail of men from that 
company, resting ten days at Archangel, to go to Bakaritza to assist the 
American Engineers to make a protected string of troop taplooshkas for the 
company. And while they were at it the engineers "found" an airplane 
motor and rigged up electric lights for the entire train. They set up their 
tiny sheet iron stoves, built there three tiers of bunks and were snug, dry, 
warm and light for the winter. Some proud company that rode back to the 
front, feeling grateful to the engineers. 

It was zero weather when they went south just before Thanksgiving to 
help build blockhouses and hospitals, Y. M. C. A. and so forth, on the Rail- 
road. Christmas found them at Obozerskaya holding mass in a Y, M. C. A. 
to usher in the day. In January this Company "B" exchanged places with 
"A" Company 310th Eilgineers, who had been further forward on the rail- 
road. There they constructed for Major Nichols the fine dugouts and the 
heavy log blockhouses which were to defy the winter's end drive and the 
spring shelling of the Bolsheviki. On January 19th and 20th they found 
themselves under shell fire but suffered no casualties. 

In the latter part of February this "B'' Company of Engineers responded 
to the great needs for new defenses on the Vaga front, travelling by way 

201 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

of Kholmogorskaya, Yemetskoe and Beresnik to reinforce the hard-working 
engineers then assisting the hard-pressed doughboys fighting their bitter 
retreat action. 

They were building defenses at Kurgomin and getting ready for the 
opening of the river when Toulgas fell, due to the treachery of the dis- 
affected Archangel Russian troops. They saw the ice go out of the Dvina, 
April 26th, snap shot of which is shown, and witnessed the first engagement 
between the British boat fleet and the Red fleet in May. 

The greatest of camaraderie and loyalty were manifested between engi- 
neers of the 310th and doughboys of the 339th. They have been mentioned 
repeatedly in the narrative of battles and engagements. From the official 
report of Lt.-Col. P. S. Morris, who commanded the 310th Engineer Detach- 
ment in North Russia, we present the following facts of interest: 

The 310th Engineers arrived in England, August 3rd, 1918. The First 
Battalion, under Major P. S. Morris, was detached from the regiment by 
verbal order of Major-General Biddle immediately upon arrival to Cowshot 
Camp, Surrey, England, where we were equipped for the expedition. We 
remained under canvas until August 26th, 1918, at which time we entrained 
for Newcastle, England. On August 27th, the entire command left Eng- 
land on board H. M. S. "Tydeus." The mess and quarters were clean and 
the food was good. The health of the men was exceptional, as none of 
the men contracted influenza which was very prevalent on the other three 
ships of the convoy. We anchored at Archangel on September 4th, 1918, 
and debarked on September 7th. 

When detached from the 310th Engineers the entire Headquarters de- 
tachment was taken with the Second Battalion, leaving this battalion 
without a non-com staff for headquarters; even the Battalion Sergeant-Major 
was taken, as we were told there was no place in the table of organization 
for a battalion sergeant-major when the battalion is acting separately. No 
extra officers were furnished us. Upon our arrival it was found necessary 
to open an Engineer depot. Capt. William Knight, Battalion Adjutant, 
was put in charge. Lieut. R. C. Johnson, Company "C," was detached from 
his company and assigned to duty as Regimental Adjutant, Topographical 
Officer and Personnel Adjutant. Lieut. M. K. Whyte, Company "B," was 
assigned as Supply and Transportation Officer. As the Northern Russian 
Expedition covers a front of approximately five hundred miles and the 
310th Engineers were the only engineering troops with the expedition, the 
shortage of officers was a very great handicap. It was necessary to put 
sergeants first-class and sergeants in charge of sectors, with what engineers 
personnel could be spared. The shortage of officers was not relieved until 
April 17th, 1919, when six engineer officers reported. 

All the engineering equipment went straight to France. We were re- 
equipped in England with English Field Company tools. The English table 
of organization does not include mapping or reconnaissance supplies, which 
were purchased in small quantities in London. 

Upon arrival, the battalion was placed under the direction of Lieut.- 
Col. R. G. S. Stokes, C. R. E., Allied Forces, North Russia, for Engineer 

202 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIK I 

operations and distributions of personnel. We remained under command of 
Col. Stewart, 339th Infantry, senior American officer, for all administrative 
matters. 

There were very few engineers here at the time of our arrival and an 
immense amount of work to be done at the base besides furnishing engineer 
personnel for the forward forces in operation at the time. It was decided 
to place one company at the front and the two companies at the base until 
some of the important base work could be finished. "A" Company was 
then ordered to the front and "B" and "C" Companies remained at the 
Base. "B" Company at Bakaritza and "C" Company at Solombola. 

On our arrival the forward forces consisted of three main columns or 
forces known as "A" force, operating on the Archangel- Vologda Railroad, 
with Obozerskaya as a base; "C" force, operating on the Dvina and Vaga 
Rivers, with Bereznik as a base; and "D" force, with Seletskoe as a base. 
It was necessary to attach engineers to each of these forces ; so one platoon 
of "A" Company, commanded by an officer, joined "A" force; one sergeant 
and ten men joined "D" force, and the remainder of "A" Company con- 
sisting of five officers and approximately one hundred eighty men joined "C" 
force, where they were divided into small detachments with each operating 
force. 

The base work consisted mainly of construction of warehouses and 
billets and operation of sawmills, street car systems, water works and power 
plants. This work was divided among "B" and "C" Companies. 

Later in the fall it became necessary to have two more columns in the 
field, one on the Onega River with Onega as a base and one on the Pinega 
River with Pinega as a base. By the time this became necessary, the rush 
on base work was over and "B" Company was moved forward, having one 
detachment of one sergeant and twelve men with "D" force and one platoon 
with Onega River Column. The remainder of the company was doing con- 
struction and fortification work on the lines of communication along the 
railroad and roads to flanking forces. 

In spite of our shortage of personnel and equipment, the morale of the 
engineers has been the highest. They have gone about their work in a 
most soldier-like manner and have shown extreme gallantry in the actions 
in which they have participated. 

The engineers were found on every front, as well as at Archangel, the 
various sub-bases, the force headquarters of the various columns, and also 
were found in winter at work on second and third line defenses. They 
often worked under fire as the narrative has indicated. At night they per- 
formed feats of engineering skill. Never was a job that appalled or stumped 
them. They generally had the active and willing assistance of the dough- 
boys in doing the rough work with axe and shovel and wire. The writers 
themselves have killed many a tedious hour out helping doughboy and 
engineer chop fire lanes and otherwise clear land for the field of fire. 

Here is Colonel Morris' summary of the engineer work done. This 
includes much but not all of the doughboy engineering also. One thing the 

203 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 
% 
engineers, doughboys and medics did do in North Russia was to demonstrate 
American industry : 



Blockhouses (some of logs and some of lumber) 

Machine gun emplacements 

Dugouts ..... 

Double Apron Wire 

Knife Rests (wire entanglement) 

Concertinas (wire entanglement) 

Barricades (some of earth, some logs 

Billets (mostly of lumber) 

Standard Huts (of lumber) 

Latrines .... 

Washhouses (of lumber) 

Warehouses (of lumber) 

Stables (of lumber) 

Clearing (fire lanes and field of fire) 

Railroad Cars (lined and remodelled) 

Rafts 

Bridges (of lumber and of logs) 

Roads ....... 

Trenches ....... 

Topography — total copies of maps and designs 
Topography — plane table road traverses 



316 
273 
167 

266,170 yards 

2,250 yards 

485 

46 

151 

42 

114 

33 

30 

14 

1,170 acres 

257 

12 

4,500 lineal feet 

11,000 lineal yards 

14,210 yards 

109,145 

1,200 miles 



In connection with their mapping work engineers took many pictures, 
several of which are included in this volume. All the mapping work of the 
expedition was done by the American engineers. See the one in this volume. 

The longest bridge constructed was the 280-foot wooden bridge which 
spanned the Emtsa River. At Verst 445, close to No Man's Land, a sixty- 
foot crib bridge was constructed by Lieut. W. C. Giffels. This work was 
completed in two nights and was entirely finished before the enemy knew 
that an advance was anticipated. Not a single spike or bolt was driven on 
the job. Railway spikes were driven into the ties behind our own lines 
and ties carried up and placed. Finally the rails were forced in under the 
heads of the spikes and were permanently fastened. 

In this district there are three types of road — mail roads, winter roads, 
and trails. The mail roads are cleared about eighty feet wide through the 
woods. An attempt has been made at surfacing and ditching, and the bad 
places corduroyed. The winter roads are cleared about twenty feet wide. 
Wherever possible they go through forestry clearings, swamps and lakes, or 
down rivers. For this reason they can only be used after a solid freeze-up. 
The trails are only cleared about six feet wide and are often impassable 
for a horse and sleigh. Approximately four and one-half miles of road have 
been corduroyed by this regiment, and a considerable part of the front 
line roads were drained. 

This battalion was called upon for a great diversity of work, which it 
would have been impossible to do had not the men been carefully selected 
in the United States. Company "C" was called upon to help operate the 
Archangel power plant and street railway system the day they arrived. 
This they were able to do very successfully. Shortly afterwards they 
raised and spliced a submerged power cable, used for conducting electricity 



204 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

under the river; one platoon was on railroad maintenance and construction 
work; and one platoon operated the saw mill. All the companies have 
been in action and have done construction work under fire. 

Two main features have governed all our construction work; first, the 
large supply of timber, and second, the very cold climate. All of our 
barracks, washhouses, latrines, blockhouses, and stables, were designed to use 
available timber stocks. For a form of rapid construction we used double 
walls six inches apart and filled the spaces with sawdust. This proved very 
satisfactory and much faster than the local method which calls for a solid 
log construction. 

The supply of engineer material has presented many problems of diffi- 
culty and interest. The distance to the nearest home base, Englandi was 
two to three weeks voyage. The port was not opened to supplies until 
after the 1st of June. Coupled with the necessary reshipment to the various 
fronts by barge and railway before the freeze-up, this caused a tremendous 
over-crowding of the dockage and warehouse facilities. The congestion 
and inevitable confusion at the port and warehouses has sometimes made 
it impossible to ever ascertain what had arrived. 

The local stocks of engineer materials are limited to what can be found 
in Archangel itself and in the subsidiary ports of Economia and Bakaritza. 
In 1916 and 1917, tremendous stocks of all sorts of war material were to 
be found here, mostly brought from England and destined for the Rumanian 
and Russian fronts. In the spring of 1918, the Bolsheviks, anticipating the 
Allies landing, moved out to Vologda and Kotlas as much as they could 
rush out by the railway and river, and on the arrival of the first troops 
here not more than five per cent of the military material still remained. 

The materials of most use to the engineers, which still remained, were 
forty thousand reels of barb wire and cable. A large amount of heavy 
machinery was also left behind, from which we have been able to locate 
and put in use a considerable number of various sized electric generators. A 
dozen complete searchlight sets, somewhat damaged by weather, were among 
this equipment. We overhauled these and used them for night construc- 
tion work and also used several of the generator units of these sets to 
illuminate the headquarters train, work train, and hospital trains employed 
on the railway front. 

The problem of transportation was one of the most difficult for us 
to contend with. The rail and road situations have already been explained. 
The country is very short of horses, the best specimens having loilg since 
been mobilized in the old Russian Army. 

With motor transportation, the situation is no better. The Bolsheviks 
evacuated the best cars to Vologda before the arrival of the expedition and 
it is alleged that most of those they did not get away, were run into the 
Dvina River. The few trucks that did remain behind were in wretched 
condition. The British turned over two Seabrook trucks to us. We made 
all repairs and furnished our own drivers. In addition to these two trucks, 
the battalion supply officer secured five more, four independently. The 
owners were willing to give them to us, without cost, in order to forestall 

?05 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

their being requisitioned by the Russian Motor BattaHon. The condition of 
these trucks was poor. During the construction of the "Michigan" Bar- 
racks, the transportation was so inadequate that we were compelled to run 
both night and day. Through our control of the Makaroff sawmill, we had 
two tug-boats belonging to the mill, but it was only rarely that we could use 
them for other purposes. 

It was a fine record our comrades, the engineers, made in the expedition. 
As the ribald old marching song goes : 

"Oh, the infantry, the infantry, with dirt behind their ears, 
The infantry, the infantry, that drink their weight in beers. 
Artillery, the cavalry, the doggoned engineers. 
They could never lick the infantry in a hundred thousand years." 

But just the same the doughboy was proud to see the 310th Engineers 
cited as a unit by General Ironside who called the 310th Engineers the 
best unit, bar none, that he had ever seen soldier in any land. He knows 
that without the sturdy and resourceful engineer boys with him in North 
Russia the defense against the Bolshevik army would have been impossible. 



200 



XXVI 

"Come Get Your Pills" 

Medical Units Do Fine Work — Volunteers Of Old Detroit Red Cross 
Number Eight Appear In North Russia As 337th Ambulance — 
Some Unforgettable Stories That Make Our Teeth Grit — Wonderful 
Work Of 337th Field Hospital Unit — Death Of Powers — Medical 
Men Do Heroic Duty. 

Owing to the nature of the country in which the campaign was fought- 
the 337th Ambulance Company was not able to function as an ambulance 
company proper. It was split up into fifteen detachments serving in various 
parts of the area under conditions exactly as difficult as those described 
for the medical and hospital units. In fact, the three companies of men — 
medical, hospital, and ambulance — who ministered to the needs of the 
wounded and sick were very soon hopelessly mixed up on the various 
fronts. 

At first among the officers there were some heart-burnings as to the 
apparent incongruity of a hospital man doing field duty and an ambulance 
man doing hospital duty and so forth, but their American sense of humor 
and of humanity soon had each doing his level best wherever he might 
be found, whether under American or British senior officers or none. The 
writer remembers many a medical — or was he hospital or ambulance — man 
that did effective and sympathetic field service to wounded comrades with 
no medical officer to guide the work. 

The 337th Ambulance Company was originally a volunteer outfit known 
as No. 8 Red Cross Ambulance Company of Detroit. Early in the history 
of the 85th Division it came to Camp Custer and was trained for duty 
overseas. After a month in the Archangel field several national army men 
were transferred to fill up again its depleted ranks. 

It was the commanding officer of this Ambulance Company, Captain 
Rosenfeld, who, though too strict to be popular with his outfit, was held 
in very high esteem by the doughboys for his vigilant attention to them. 
It was a sight to see him with his dope bottle of cough syrup going from 
post to post dosing the men who needed it. He will not be forgotten by 
the man who was stricken with acute appendicitis at a post where no medical 
detachment was stationed. He commandeered an engine and box car and 
ran out to the place and took the man into the field hospital himself and 
operated inside an hour, saving the man's life. For his gallantry in going 
to treat wounded men at posts which were under fire, the French com- 
mander remembered him with a citation. He is the officer whom the 
Bolshevik artillery tried to snipe with three-inch shells, as he passed from 
post to post during a quiet time at Verst 445. 

At Yemetskoe in February, one night just after the terrible retreat from 
Shenkursk, forty wounded American, British, and Russian soldiers lay on 

207 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

stretchers on the floor in British field hospital. They were just in from 
the evacuation from Shenkursk front, cold and faint from hunger. There 
was no American medical personnel at that village. They were all at the 
front. Mess Sgt. Vincent of "F" Company went in to see how the wounded 
soldiers were getting along. He was just in time to see the British medical 
sergeant come in with a pitcher of tea, tin cups, hard tack, and margarine 
and jam. He put it on the floor and said: "Here is your supper; go to it." 

Sgt. Vincent protested to the English sergeant that the supper was not 
fit for wounded men and that they should be helped to take their food. 
The British sergeant swore at him, kicked him out of the hospital and 
reported him to the British medical officer who attempted, vainly, to put 
the outraged American sergeant under arrest. 

Sergeant Vincent then reported the matter to Captain Ramsay of "F" 
Company, who ordered him to use "F" Company funds to buy foods at 
the British N. A. C. B. canteen. This, with what the Y. M. C. A. gave 
the sergeant, enabled him to feed the American and Russian wounded the day 
that they rested there. This deed was done repeatedly by Mess Sgt. Vincent 
during those dreadful days. In all, he took care of over three hundred 
sick and wounded Americans and Russians that passed back from the 
fighting lines through Yemetskoe. 

Doughboys at Seletskoe tell of equally heartless treatment. There at 
20 degrees below zero they were required one day to form sick call line 
outside of the British medical officer's nice warm office. This was not 
necessary and he was compelled to accede to the firm insistence of the 
American company commander that his sick men should not stand out in 
the cold. That was only one of many such outrageous incidents. And the 
doughboys unfortunately did not always have a sturdy American officer 
present to protect them as in this case. 

Corporal Simon Bogacheff states that he left Archangel December 8th 
or 9th with seventy-three other wounded men and "flu" victims. After fifteen 
days the "Stephen" landed at Dundee after a very rough voyage in the 
pitching old boat. He had to buy stuff on the side from the cooks as he 
could not bear the British rations. Men were obliged to steal raw potatoes 
and buy lard and fry them. The corporal, who could talk the Serbian 
language, fraternized with them and gained entrance to a place where he 
could see English sergeants' mess. Steaks and vegetables for them and 
cases of beer. 

Alfred StarikofI of Detroit states that he was sent out of Archangel 
in early winter suffering from an incurable running sore in his ear. He 
boarded an ice-breaker at the edge of the frozen White Sea. After a four- 
hour struggle they cleared the icebound shore and made the open sea, which 
was not open but filled with a great floe of polar ice. At Murmansk he 
was transferred to a hospital ship and then without examination of his 
car trouble was sent to shore. There he put in five protesting weeks doing 
orderly work at British officers' quarters. Finally he was allowed to proceed 
to England, Leith, Liverpool, Southampton, London, Notty Ash, and thence 
to Brest, thence to the U. S. in May to Ford Hospital. The delay in Mur- 

208 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

mansk did him no good. American veterans of the campaign know that 
this is not the only case of where sick and wounded doughboys were delayed 
at Murmansk, once merely to make room for British officers who were neither 
wounded nor sick. Let Uncle Sam remember this in his next partnership 
war. 

Only on the Pinega front did the American medical officer enjoy free 
action. An interesting story could be told of the American hospital and 
the two Russian Red Cross (local) hospitals and the city civil hospital 
which were all under control of Capt. C. R. Laird, the red-haired, where 
he had any, unexcitable old doctor from Nebraska, who treated one hundred 
and fourteen wounded Russian soldiers in one night. 

And a romantic thread in the narrative would be the story of Sistra 
Lebideva, the alleged Bolshevik female spy, who was released from prison 
in Pinega by the American commanding officer and given duty as nurse 
in the Russian receiving hospital. She was a trained nurse in an apron, 
and a Russian beauty in her fine clothes. The Russian lieutenant who 
acted as intelligence officer on the American commander's staff in investigat- 
ing the nurse's case, fell hopelessly in love with her. An American 
lieutenant, out of friendship for the Russian officer, several weeks later took 
the nurse to Archangel disguised as a soldier. Then the Russian lieutenant 
was ordered to Archangel to explain his conduct. He had risked his com- 
mission and involved himself in appearances of pro-Bolshevism by disobey- 
ing an order to send the suspected nurse in as a spy. He had connived 
at her escape from her enemies in Pinega, who, when the Americans lefti 
would have ousted her from the hospital and thrust her back into prison. 
He was saved by the intercession of the American officer and she was 
set free upon explanations. But the romance ended abruptly when Sistra 
Lebideva threw the Russian lieutenant over and went to nurse on another 
front where later the Russians turned traitor. 

The 337th Field Hospital Company was trained at Camp Custer as a part 
of the 310th Sanitary Train, was detached in England and sent to North 
Russia with the other American units. It was commanded by Major Jonas 
Longley, Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, who till April was the senior American 
medical officer. The enlisted personnel consisted of eighty men. 

The first duty of the unit in Russia was caring for "flu" patients. It went 
up the Dvina River to Beresnik on September 22nd, taking over a Russian 
civilian hospital^ Three weeks later the hospital barge dubbed "The 
Michigan" came up from Archangel with the "B" section of Field Hospital 
Company. Five days later this section of the field hospital proceeded by 
hospital sidewheeler to Shenkursk and took over a large high school building 
for a permanent field hospital. Here the unit gave service to the one hundred 
and fifty cases of "flu" among the Russians. This was where Miss Valentine, 
the English girl who had been teaching school for several years in Russia, 
came on to nurse the Russians during the "flu" and later became very friendly 
with the Americans, and was accused of being a Bolshevik sympathizer, 
which story is wound all around by a thread of romance clean and pretty. 

809 



• THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

During the Bolo's smashing in of the Ust Padenga front and the subse- 
quent memorable retreat from Shenkursk this section of field hospital men 
had their hands full. It was in the field hospital at Shenkursk that the 
gallant and beloved Lt. Ralph G. Powers of the Ambulance Corps died 
and his body had to be left to the triumphant Bolos. Powers had been 
mortally wounded by a shell that entered his dressing station at Ust Padenga 
where he was alone with six enlisted men. His wounds were dressed by a 
Russian doctor who was with the Russian company supporting "A" Com- 
pany. Lt. Powers had gone to the railroad front in September, shifted to 
the Kodish front during severe fighting, and then to the distant Shenkursk 
froflt. He was never relieved from front line duty, although three medical 
officers at this time were in Shenkursk. Capt. Kinyon immediately sent 
Lt. Katz to Ust Padenga upon the loss of Powers, who will always be a 
hero to the expeditionary veterans. 

It was at Ust Padenga that Corp. Chas. A. Thornton gave up his chair 
to a weary Supply Company man. Comrade Carl G. Berger, just up from 
Shenkursk with an ambulance, and a Bolo three-inch shell hurled through 
the log wall and decapitated the luckless supply man. In the hasty retreat 
the hospital men, like the infantry men, had to abandon everything but 
the clothes and equipment on their backs. 

During the holding retreat of the 1st Battalion of the Vaga a small 
hospital was established temporarily at Kitsa. 

Later during the slowing up of the retreat, hospitals were opened at 
Ust Vaga and Osinova. Here this section stayed. The other section had 
been at Beresnik all the time. During the latter days of the campaign the 
field hospital company took over the river front field medical duties so 
that the medical detachments of the 339th and the detachments of the 
337th Ambulance Company could be assembled for evacuation at Archangel. 
And the 337th Field Hospital Company itself was assembled at Archangel 
June 13th and sailed June 15th. Their work had for the most part been 
under great strain in the long forest and river campaign, always seeing the 
seamy side of the war and lacking the frequent changes of scenery and the 
blood-stirring combats which the doughboy encountered. It took strong 
qualities of heart and nerve to be a field hospital man, or an ambulance 
or medical man. 



210 



XXVII 

Signal Platoon Wins Commendation 

Learning Wireless In A Few Weeks — Sterling Work Of Field Buzzers — 
With Assaulting Columns — ^Wires Repaired Under Shell Fire — 
General Ironside's Commendatory Official Citation. 

In the North Russian Expedition the doughboy had to learn to do most 
anything that was needful. A sergeant, two corporals and four men of the 
Headquarters Company Signal Platoon actually in four months time mastered 
the mysteries of wireless telegraphy. This is usually a year's course in any 
technical school. But these men were forced by necessity to learn how to 
receive and to send messages in a few weeks' time. 

They were trained at first for a few days at Tundra, the wireless station 
used by the British and French for intercepting messages. Later at Obozer- 
skaya and at Verst 455 they gained experience that made them expert in 
picking messages out of the air. At one time the writer was shown a mes- 
sage which was intercepted passing from London to Bagdad, It was no un- 
common thing for a doughboy to intercept messages from Egypt or Mesopo- 
tamia and other parts of the Mediterranean world, from Red Moscow, Social- 
ist Berlin, starving Vienna and from London. 

At one period in the spring defensive of the Archangel- Vologda Railroad, 
this American wireless crew was the sole reliance of the force, as the Oboz- 
crskaya station went out of order for a time, and the various points, Onega, 
Seletskoe and Archangel were kept in communication by this small unit at 
Verst 455. "H" Company men will recall that out of the blue sky from the 
east one day came a message from Major Nichols asking if their gallant 
leader, Phillips, had any show of recovering from the Bolo bullet in his lung. 
The message sent back was hopeful. 

The record of the signal platoon under Lieutenant Anselmi, of Detroit, 
shows also that several of these signal men rendered great service as teleg- 
raphers. One of the pleasant duties of the doughboy buzzer operators one 
day in spring was to receive and transmit to Major J. Brooks Nichols the 
message from his royal majesty. King George of Great Britain and Ireland, 
that for gallantry in action he had been honored with election to the Dis- 
tinguished Service Order, the D. S, O. 

But it is the field telephone men who really made the signal platoon its 
great reputation. General Ironside's letter of merit is included later in this 
account. Here let us record in some detail the work of the American sig- 
nal platoon. 

Thirty men maintained nearly five hundred miles of circuit wire that 
lay on the surface of the ground and was subject in on«-third of that space 
to constant disruption by enemy artillery fire and to constant menace from 
enemy patrols. The switchboard at Verst 455 was able to give thirty dif- 
ferent connections at once at any time of day or night; at 448, ten; and at 



1 THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

445, six. This means a lot of work. The writer knows that the field tele- 
phone man is an important, in fact, invaluable adjunct to his forces whether 
in attack or in defense. For when the attack has been successful and the 
officer in command wishes to send information quickly to his superior officer 
asking for supplies of ammunition or for more forces or for artillery sup- 
port to come up and assist in beating off the enemy counter-attack, the field 
telephone is indispensable. Hence the doughboy who carries his reels of 
wire along with the advancing skirmish line shares largely in the credit 
for doing a job up thoroughly. At the capture of Verst 445 the signal men 
were able to talk through to Major Nichols at 448 within four minutes of 
the time the doughboys' cheers of victory had sounded ! And within fifteen 
minutes a line had been extended out to the farthest point where doughboys 
were digging in. There they were able later to give the artillery commander 
information of the effect of his shells long before he could get his own sig- 
nals into place for observation. The British signals were good, but, as the 
writers well recall, it was especially assuring when the buzzer sounded to 
have an American doughboy at the other end say he would make the con- 
nection or take the message. They never fell down on the job. 

General Ironside's commendation is not a bit too strong in its praises of 
the signal platoon. We are glad to make it a part of the history, and with- 
out doubt all the veterans who read these pages will join us in the little 
glow of pride with which we pass on this official citation of the Command- 
ing General's, which is as follows : 

"The Signal Platoon of the 339th Infantry, under Second Lieutenant 
Anselmi, has performed most excellent work on this front. Besides 
forming the Signals of the Railway Detachment, the platoon provided 
much needed reinforcements for other Allied Signal Units, and the readi- 
ness with which they have co-operated with the remainder of Allied Sig- 
nal Service has been of the greatest service throughout. 

"Please convey to all ranks of the platoon my appreciation of the 
services they have rendered." 

(Signed) E. IRONSIDE, Major-General, 
Commander-in-Chief, Allied Forces, Archangel, Russia. 
G. H. Q., 23rd May, 1919. 

And our American commander, General Richardson, in transmitting the 
letter through regimental headquarters said, "Their work adds further to 
the splendid record made by American Forces in Europe." 



212 



XXVIII 

The Doughboy^s Money In Archangel 

Coin And Paper Of North Russia — Trafficking In Exchange — New 
Issue Of Paper Roubles — Trying To Peg Rouble Currency — Yanks 
Lose On Pay Checks Drawn On British Pound Sterling Banks. 

The writer has a silver Nicholas the Fifth rouble. It is one of the very few 
silver coins seen in Russia. Here and there a soldier was able to get hold 
of silver and gold coins of the old days, but they were very scarce. The 
Russian peasant had to feel a high degree of affection for an American 
before he would part with one of his hoarded bits of real money. 

Of paper money there was no end. When the Americans landed, they 
were met by small boys on the streets with sheets of Archangel state money 
under their arms. The perforations of some Kerenskies were not yet dis- 
turbed when great sheets and rolls of it were taken from the bodies of dead 
Bolos. Everybody had paper money. The Bolsheviki were counterfeiting 
the old Czar's paper money and the Kerensky money and issuing currency 
of their own. The Polar Bear and Walrus 25-rouble notes of Archangel 
and their sign-board size government gold bond notes were printed in Eng- 
land, as were later the other denominations of Archangel roubles, better 
known as British roubles. Needless to say there was a great speculation 
in money and exchange. Nickolai and Kerensky and Archangel and British 
guaranteed roubles tumbled over one another in the market. Of course 
trafficking in money was taboo but was brisk. 

Early the Yankee got on to this game. His American money was even 
more prized than the English or French. The Russian gave him great rolls 
of roubles of various sorts for his greenbacks. Then he took the good money 
on the ships in the harbor and bought, usually through a sailor, boxes of 
candy and cartons of cigarettes and, — whisper this, bottles and cases of 
whiskey of which thousands of cases found their way to Archangel. The 
Russian then went out into the ill-controlled markets and side streets of 
Archangel and sold to his own countrymen these luxuries at prices that 
would make an American sugar profiteer or bootlegger seem a piker. Mean- 
while the Yank or Tommie or Poilu went to his own commissary or to the 
British Navy and Army Canteen Bureau, "N. A. C. B." to the doughboy's 
memory, or to our various "Y" canteens and at a fixed rate of exchange — 
a rate fixed by the bankers in London — to use his roubles in buying things. 
He could also use the roubles in buying furs and skins of the Russians who 
still had the same saved from the looting Bolsheviki. At the rate first 
established, an English pound sterling was exchangeable for forty-eight 
roubles and vice versa. But on the illicit market, the pound would bring 
anywhere from eighty to one hundred and forty roubles. The American 
five dollar bill which was approximately worth fifty roubles in this "pegged" 
rouble money on the market when an American ship was in the harbor, 

213 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

would bring one hundred to one hundred and fifty roubles. No wonder the 
doughboy who was stationed around Archangel or Bakaritsa found it pos- 
sible to stretch his money a good way. Many a dollar of company fund 
was made to buy twice as much or more than it otherwise would have 
bought. And in passing, let it be remarked that the Yank who had access 
to N. A. C. B. and other canteen stores was not slow in joining the thrifty 
Russki in this trafficking game, illicit though it was. And truth to tell, many 
a case of British whiskey was stolen by Yank and Tommie and Russki and 
Poilu and sent rejoicing on its way through these devious underground 
channels of traffic. One American officer in responsible position had to 
suffer for it when he returned to the States. The doughboys and medics and 
engineers who were up there are still filled with mixed emotions on the 
subject, a mixture of indignation and admiration. 

"Let him now who is guiltless throw the first stone." 

Returning to the discussion of currency, let it be recorded that after the 
market was flooded with all sorts of money and after the ships stopped com- 
ing because of the great ice barrier, the money market became wilder than 
ever. Finally the London bankers who had been the victims of this specu- 
lation, decided upon a new issue of pegged currency. At forty to the pound 
the old roubles were called in. That is, every soldier who had forty-eight 
roubles could exchange them for forty new crisp and pretty roubles. Their 
beauty was marred by the rubber stamp which was put over the sign of old 
Nicholas' rule, which the thoughtless or tactless London money maker printed 
on the issue. The Russian would have none of this new money with that 
suggestion of restoration of Czar rule. Inconsistently enough they still 
prized the old Nickolai rouble notes as the very best paper currency in the 
land, and loud was the outcry at giving forty-eight Nickolais for forty Eng- 
lish-printed and guaranteed roubles of their own new Archangel govern- 
ment. 

To stimulate the retirement of all other forms of currency, which measure 
in a settled country would have been a sensible economic pressure, the Arch- 
angel government set a date when not forty-eight but fifty-six roubles might 
be exchanged for forty new roubles. Then a date for sixty-four, then for 
seventy-two and then eighty. Thus the skeptical peasant and the suspicious 
soldier saw his old roubles steadily decline in exchange value for the new 
roubles. Of course they had always grabbed all the counterfeit stuff and 
used it in exchange with no compunctions. That was the winning part of 
the game. Now they were pinched. It afforded some merriment to hear 
the outcries of some who had been making rolls of money in the trafficking. 

At the same time there was real suffering on the part of peasants in far 
distant areas who could not get their currency up for exchange or for 
stamping and punching which itself was finally necessary to even get the 
eighty-forty rate. They felt mistreated. To their simple hearts and ignor- 
ant minds, it was nothing short of robbery by the distant London bankers. 
Soldiers on the far distant fronts were caught also in the currency reform. 
Some of the fault was neglect by their own American officers and some was 
indifference to the subject by those American officers at Archangel who 

214 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

were in position to know what was going to be the result of the attempt 
to peg the currency at a fixed rate. 

An officer who was in Archangel during the summer on Graves Com- 
mission service after the American units had been withdrawn, reports that 
speculators for a song bought up great bales of the old Kerensky and Nickolai 
currency supposed to be cancelled, dead, defunct stuff, and when there was 
a considerable evacuation of central Russians who had been for months 
refugees in Archangel, this currency came out of hiding, and its traffickers 
realized a handsome profiteerski by selling it to the returning people at sixty 
to the pound sterling, for in interior Russia the old stuff was still in cir- 
culation. At any rate that was Shylokov's advertisement. During the sum- 
mer, the money market, says Lieut. Primm, became a violent wonder. On 
one day a person could not obtain two hundred and fifty roubles for one 
hundred North Russian roubles and a day or two later he might be im- 
portuned to take three hundred old for one hundred new. 

Neither the soldiers nor the Russians saw any justice in this flip-flopping 
of the currency market, to which of course they themselves were contribu- 
tors. The thing they saw clearly was that when they had need of Engfish 
credit (that is, checks) to send money to London banks or when they wanted 
to buy goods from England or America, then they could buy only with the 
new, the guaranteed rouble, which might be dear,, even at one hundred and 
twenty-five to the pound sterling and was dearer of course in terms of old 
roubles, the more the demand was for the new roubles which were in the 
hands of speculators who manipulated the market as sweetly for themselves 
as the American profiteers with their oral and written advertisements manip- 
ulate our foodstuffs and goods for us. On the other hand, if the soldier or 
peasant or small merchant had dues coming to him in English money he 
then found them valued at forty to the pound sterling. This difference 
between eighty and one hundred and twenty-five he thought (naturally 
enough to his unsophisticated mind) was due to the vacillation in policy of 
enforcement of the pegged rate and prosecution of the traffickers. 

However opinion may differ as to the blame for the inability to peg the 
exchange, we know it was a bonanza to the speculators. Ponzi ought to 
have been there to compete with the whiskered money sharks. And we 
know there were Americans as well as British, French, Russians and other 
nationals who were numbered among those speculators. 

After all is said we must admit that the money situation was one that 
was exceedingly difficult to handle. It was infinitely worse in Bolshevikdom. 
The doughboy who used to find pads of undetached counterfeit Kerenskie 
on the dead Bolsheviks, can well believe that thirty dollars of good American 
chink one day in the Soviet part of Russia bought an American newspaper 
man one million paper roubles of the Lenine-Trotsky issue, and that before 
night, spending his money at the famine prices in the worthless paper, he 
was a dead-broke millionaire. 

During the time American soldiers were in Russia they were paid in 
checks drawn on London. During the war, this was at the pegged rate 
($4.76^4) which had been fixed by agreement between London and New 

215 



% THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

York bankers to prevent violent fluctuations. But at the end of the war, 
after the Armistice, the peg was pulled and the natural course of the mar- 
ket sent the pound sterling steadily downward, as the American dollar rose 
in value as compared with other currencies of the world. To those who 
were dealing day by day this was all in the game of money exchange. But 
to the soldier in far-off North Russia who had months of pay coming to 
him when he left the forests of the Vaga and Onega this was a real financial 
hardship. Many a doughboy whose wife or mother was in need at home 
because of the rapidly mounting prices put up by the slackers in the shops 
and the slackers in the marts of trade, now saw his little pay check shrink 
up in exchange value. He felt that his superior officers in the war depart- 
ment had hardly looked after his interests as well as they might have done. 
Major Nichols did succeed at Brest in getting the old pegged rate for the 
men and officers, but many had already parted with the checks at heavy dis- 
count for fear that the nearer they got to the land for which they had been 
fighting, the more discount there would be on the pay checks with which 
their Quartermaster had paid them their pittances. Soldiers of the second 
detachment came on home with Colonel Stewart to Camp Custer and were 
obliged (most of them) to take their little $3.82 per pound sterling of the 
British pound sterling paid them by Quartermaster Major Ely in North 
Russia, at $4.76^. Later, through the efforts of the late Congressman 
Nichols, many of those soldiers were reimbursed. Of course complete 
restitution would have been made by the war department if all the soldiers 
had sent their claims in. Hundreds of American veterans of the North 
Russian campaign lost ten to twenty per cent of their pay check's hard 
earned value. 



2U\ 



XXIX 

Propaganda and Propaganda and — 

Propaganda Two-Edged Tool — From Crusaders To Carping Cynics — Be 
Warned — Afraid To Tell The Truth — Startling Stories Of Bolo 
Atrocities Published — Distortion Disgusts Brave Men — Wrong To 
Play On Race Prejudices — Our Own Government Missed Main 
Chance — Doughboy Beset By Active Enemy In Front And Plagued 
By Active Propaganda Of Hybrid Varieties — Sample Of Bolshevik 
Propaganda Used On Americans — Yanks Punched Holes In Red 
Propaganda — Propaganda To Doughboy Connotes Lies And Distortion 
And Concealment Of Truth. 

"Over there, over there, the Yanks are coming," sang the soldiers in train- 
ing camp as they changed from recruits into fighting units of the 85th Divi- 
sion at Battle Creek. And the morale of the 339th was evidenced, some 
thought, by the fervor with which the officers and men roared out their hate 
chorus, "Keep your head down, you dirty Hun. If you want to see your 
father in your Fatherland, Keep your head down, you dirty Hun." Maybe 
so, maybe not. Maybe morale is made of finer stuff than hate and bombast. 
Maybe idealism does enter into it. Of course there are reactionary periods 
in the history of a people when selfishness and narrovi^ness and bigotry 
combine to cry down the expression of its idealism. Not in 1918. 

No secret was made of the fact that the Americans went into the war with 
a fervor born of an aroused feeling of world-responsibility. We must do 
our part to save Christian civilization from the mad nationalism of the 
German people led by their diabolic Hohenzollern reigning family and war 
bureaucracy. Too much kultur would ruin the world. Germany must be 
whipped. We tingled with anticipation of our entrance to the trenches 
beside the bled-white France. We were going "Over There" in the spirit 
of crusaders. 

What transformed a hesitating, reluctant, long-suflfering people into cru- 
saders? Propaganda. Press work. Five-minute men. Open and secret 
work. It was necessary to uncover and oppose the open and secret propa- 
ganda of paid agents of Germany, and woefully deluded German-Americans 
who toiled freely to help Kaiser Bill, as though to disprove the wisdom of 
the statement that no man can serve two masters. We beat their propa- 
ganda, uncovered the tracks of the Prussian beast in our midst, found out, 
we thought, the meaning of explosions and fires and other terrible accidents 
in our munition plants, and turned every community into vigilant searchers 
for evidences of German propaganda or deviltry of a destructive kind and 
we persecuted many an innocent man. 

And now we sadly suspect that in fighting fire with fire, that is in fight- 
ing propaganda with propaganda, we descended by degrees to use the same 
despicable methods of distorting truth for the sake of influencing people 

217 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

to a certain desired end. England and France and all other countries had 
the same sad experience. Doubtless we could not very well avoid it. It is 
part of the hell of war to think about it now. Propaganda, fair one, you 
often turn out to be a dissipated hag, a camp follower. 

Many years from now some calm historian going over the various Blue 
Books and White Books and Red Books, with their stories of the atrocities 
of the enemy, ad nauseam, will come upon the criminating Official Documents 
of various nations that sought to propagandize the world into trembling, 
cowering belief in a new dragon. Bolshevism with wide-spread sable wings, 
thrashing his spiny tail and snorting fire from his nostrils was volplaning 
upon the people of earth with open red mouth and cruel fangs and horrid 
maw down which he would gulp all the political, economic and religious 
liberties won from the centuries past. The dragon was about to devour 
civilization. 

And the historian will shake his head sadly and say, "Too bad they fell 
for all that propaganda. Poor Germans. Poor Britishers. Poor French- 
men. Poor Russians. Poor Americans. Too bad. What a mess that propa- 
ganda was. Propaganda and propaganda and — well, there are three kinds 

of propaganda just as there are three kinds of lies; lies and lies and d 

lies." 

In this volume we are historically interested in the propaganda as it was 
presented and as it affected us in the campaign fighting the Bolsheviki in 
North Russia in 1918-19. We write this chapter with great hesitation and 
with consciousness that it is subject to error in investigation and sifting of 
evidences and subject to error of bias on the part of the writer. However, 
no attempt has been made to compel the parts of this volume to be consistent 
with one another. Facts have been stated and comments have been written 
as they occurred to the writers. If they were forced to be consistent with 
one another it would be using the method of the propagandizes We prefer 
to appear inconsistent and possibly illogical rather than to hold back or 
frame anything to suit the general prejudices of the readers. Take this 
chapter then with fair warning. 

Keenly disappointed we were to be told in England that we were not to 
join our American comrades who were starting "Fritz" backward in Northern 
France. We were to go to Archangel for guard duty. The expert propa- 
gandists in England were busy at once working upon the American soldiers 
going to North Russia. The bare truth of the matter would not be sufficient. 
Oh no ! All the truth must not be told at once either. It's not done, you 
know. Certainly not. Soldiers and the soldiers' government might ask 
questions. British War Office experts must hand out the news to feed the 
troops. And they did. 

Guard duty in Archangel, as we have seen, speedily became a fall offensive 
campaign under British military command. And right from the jump off at 
the Bolshevik rearguard forces, British propaganda began coming out. Does 
anyone recall a general order that came out from our American Command- 
ing officer of the Expedition? Is there a veteran of the American Expedi- 
tionary force in North Russia who does not recall having read or hearing 

218 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

published the general orders of the British, G. H. Q. referring to the objects 
of the expedition and to the character of the enemy, the Bolsheviki? 

"The enemy. Bolsheviks. These are soldiers and sailors whoi in the 
majority of cases are criminals," says General Poole's published order, 
"Their natural, vicious brutality enabled them to assume leadership. The 
Bolshevik is now fighting desperately, firstly, because the restoration of 
law and order means an end to his reign, and secondly, because he sees a 
rope round his neck for his past misdeeds if he is caught. Germans. The 
Bolsheviks have no capacity for organization but this is supplied by Germany 
and her lesser Allies. The Germans usually appear in Russian uniform and 
are impossible to distinguish." Why was that last sentence added? Sure 
enough we did not distinguish them, not enough to justify the propaganda. 

Immediately upon arrival of the Americans in the Archangel area they 
had found the French soldiers wildly aflame with the idea that a man captured 
by the Bolsheviks was bound to suffer torture and mutilation. And one 
wicked day when the Reds were left in possession of the field the French 
soldiers came back reporting that they had mercifully put their mortally 
wounded men, those whom they could not carry away, out of danger of tor- 
ture by the Red Guards by themselves ending their ebbing lives. Charge that 
sad episode up to propaganda. To be sure, we know that there were evi- 
dences in a few cases, of mutilation of our own American dead. But it was 
not one-tenth as prevalent a practice by the Bolos as charged, and as they 
became more disciplined, their warfare took on a character which will bear 
safe comparison with our own. 

The writer remembers the sense of shame that seized him as he reluctant- 
ly read a general order to his troops, a British piece of propaganda, that 
recited gruesome atrocities by the Bolsheviks, a recital that was supposed to 
make the American soldiers both fear and hate the enemy. Brave men do 
not need to be fed such stuflf. Distortion of facts only disgusts the man when 
he finally becomes undeceived. 

"There seems to be among the troops a very indistinct idea of what we 
are fighting for here in North Russia." This is the opening statement of 
another one of General Poole's pieces of propaganda. "This can be explained 
in a very few words. We are up against Bolshevism, which means anarchy 
pure and simple." Yet in another statement he said : "The Bolshevik gov- 
ernment is entirely in the hands of Germans who have backed this party 
against all others in Russia owing to the simplicity of maintaining anarchy 
in a totally disorganized country. Therefore we are opposed to the Bol- 
shevik-cum- German party. In regard to other parties we express no criti- 
cism and will accept them as we find them provided they are for Russia and 
therefore for 'out with the Boche.* Briefly we do not meddle in internal 
affairs. It must be realized that we are not invaders but guests and that 
we have not any intention of attempting to occupy any Russian territory." 

That was not enough. Distortion must be added. "The power is in the 
hands of a few men, mostly Jews" (an appeal to race hatred), "who have 
succeeded in bringing the country to such a state that order is non-existent. 
The posts and railways do not run properly, every man who wants somethia« 

219 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

that some one else has got, just kills his opponent only to be killed himself 
when the next man comes along. Human life is not safe, you can buy justice 
at so much for each object. Prices of necessities have so risen that nothing 
is procurable. In fact the man with a gun is cock of the walk provided 
he does not meet another man who is a better shot." 

Was not that fine stuff? Of course there were elements of truth in it. 
It would not have been propaganda unless it had some. But its falsities of 
statement became known later and the soldiers bitterly resented the attempt 
to propagandize them. 

The effect of this line of propaganda was at last made the subject of an 
informal protest by Major J. Brooks Nichols, one of our most influential and 
level-headed American officers, in a letter to General Ironside, whose sym- 
pathetic letter of reply did credit to his respect for other brave men 
and credit to his judgment. He ordered that the propaganda should not be 
further circulated among the American soldiers. It must be admitted that 
the French soldiers also suffered revulsion of feeling when the facts be- 
came better known. The British War Office methods of stimulating enthusi- 
asm in the campaign against the Bolsheviki was a miserable failure. Distor- 
tion and deception will fail in the end. You can't fool all the soldiers all the 
while. Truth will always win in the end. The soldier has right to it. 
He fights for truth; he should have its help. 

Our own military and government authorities missed the main chance 
to help the soldiers in North Russia and gain their most loyal service in 
the expedition. Truth, not silence with its suspected acquiescence with 
British propaganda and methods of dealing with Russians; truth not rumors, 
truth, was needed; not vague promises, but truth. 

In transmitting to us the Thanksgiving Day Proclamation, our Amer- 
ican diplomatic representative in North Russia, Mr. Dewitt Poole, pubhshed 
to the troops the following : "But so great a struggle cannot end so abruptly. 
In the West the work of occupying German territory continues. In the East 
C-erman intrigue has delivered large portions of Russia into unfriendly and 
undemocratic hands. The President has given our pledge of friendship to 
Russia and will point the way to its fulfillment. Confident in his leadership 
the American troops and officials in Northern Russia will hold to their task 
to the end." This was a statement made by our American Charge d' Affairs 
after the Armistice, it will be noted. 

The New Year's editorial in The Sentinel, our weekly paper, says, in 
part : "We who are here in North Russia constitute concrete evidence that 
there is something real and vital behind the words of President Wilson and 
other allied statesmen who have pledged that 'we shall stand by Russia.' 
Few of us, particularly few Americans, realize the debt which the whole 
world owes to Russia for her part in this four years struggle against Ger- 
man junkerism. Few of us now realize the significance that will accrue as 
the years go by to the presence of allied soldiers in Russia during this period 
of her greatest suffering. The battle for world peace, for democracy, for 
free representative government, has not yet been fought to a finish in Russia." 

220 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

With the sentiment of those two expressions, the American soldier might 
well be in accord. But he was dubious about the fighting; he was learning 
things about the Bolsheviks ; he was hoping for statement of purposes by his 
government. But as the weeks dragged by he did not get the truth from 
his own government. Neither from Colonel Stewart, military head of the 
expedition, nor from the diplomatic and other United States' agencies who 
were in Archangel, did he get satisfying facts. They allowed him to be 
propagandized, instead, both by the British press and news despatches and 
by the American press and political partisanships of various shades of color 
that came freely into North Russia to plague the already over-propaganized 
soldier. 

Of the Bolshevik propaganda mention has been made in one or two 
other connections. We may add that the Bolos must have known something 
of our unwarlike and dissatisfied state of mind, for they left bundles of 
propaganda along the patrol paths, some of it in undecipherable characters 
of the Russian alphabet; but there was a publication in English, The Call, 
composed in Moscow by a Bolshevik from Milwaukee or Seattle or some 
other well known Soviet center on the home shore of the Atlantic. 

These are some of the extracts. The reader may judge for himself: 

"Do you British working-men know what your capitalists expect 
you to do about the war? They expect you to go home and pay in taxes 
figured into the price of your food and clothing, eight thousand millions 
of English pounds or forty thousand millions of American dollars. If 
you have any manhood, don't you think it would be fair to call all these 
debts off? If you think this is fair, then join the Russian Bolsheviks 
in repudiating all war debts. 

"Do you realize that the principle reason the British-American finan- 
ciers have sent you to fight us for, is because we were sensible enough 
to repudiate the war debts of the bloody, corrupt old Czar? 

"You soldiers are fighting on the side of the employers against us, 
the working people of Russia. All this talk about intervention to 'save' 
Russia amounts to this, that the capitalists of your countries, are trying 
to take back from us what we won from their fellow capitalists in 
Russia. Can't you realize that this is the same war that you have been 
carrying on in England and America against the master class? You 
hold the rifles, you work the guns to shoot us with, and you are playing 
the contemptible part of the scab. Comrade, don't do it ! 

"You are kidding yourself that you are fighting for your country. 
The capitalist class places arms in your hands. Let the workers cease 
using these weapons against each other, and turn them on their sweaters. 
The capitalists themselves have given you the means to overthrow them, 
if you had but the sense and the courage to use them. There is only 
one thing that you can do: arrest your officers. Send a commission of 
your common soldiers to meet our own workingmen, and find out your- 
selves what we stand for." 

All of which sounds like the peroration of an eloquent address at a meet- 
ing of America's own I. W. W. in solemn conclave assembled. Needless 
to say this was not taken seriously. Soldiers were quick to punch holes 
in any propaganda, or at any rate if they could not discern its falsities, 
could clench their fists at those whom they believed to be seeking to "work 

S21 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

them." Fair words and explosive bullets did not match any more than 
"guard duty" and "offensive movements" matched. 

Lt. Costello, in his volume, Why Did We Go To Russia, says: "The 
preponderant reason why Americans would never be swayed by this propa- 
ganda drive, lay in their hatred of laziness and their love of industry. 
If the Bolsheviki were wasting their time, however, in their propaganda 
efforts directed at effects in the field, it must be a source of great comfort 
to Lenin and Trotsky, Tchitcherin and Peters and others of their ilk, to 
know that their able, and in some case, unwitting allies in America, who 
condone Bolshevist atrocities, apologize for Soviet shortcomings, appear 
before Congressional committees and other agencies and contribute weak at- 
tempts at defense of this Red curse are all serving them so well." 

"Seeing red," we see Red in many things that are really harmless. In 
Russia, as in America, many false accusations and false assumptions are 
made. We now know that of certainty the Bolshevik, or Communistic party 
of Russia was aided by like-minded people in America and vice versa, but 
we became rather hysterical in 1919 over those I. W. W.-Red outbursts, 
and very nearly let the conflict between Red propaganda and anti-Red propa- 
ganda upset our best traditions of toleration, of free speech, and of free 
press. Now we are seeing more clearly. Justice and toleration and real 
information are desired. Propaganda to the American people is becoming as 
detested as it was to the soldiers. Experience of the veterans of the North 
Russian campaign has taught them the foolishness of propaganda and the 
wisdom of truth-telling. The Germans, the Bolsheviks, the British War 
Office, Our War Department and self-seeking individuals who passed out 
propaganda, failed miserably in the end. 



222 



XXX 

Real Facts About Alleged Mxjtiny 

Mail Bags And Morale — Imaginative Scoop Reporters And Alarmists — 
Few Men Lost Heads Or Hearts — Colonel Stewart Cables To Allay 
Needless Fears — But War Department Had Lost Confidence Of 
People — Too Bad Mutiny Allegations Got Started — Maliciously 
Utilized — Officially Investigated And Denied — Secretary Baker's 
Letter Here Included — Facts Which Afforded Flimsy Foundation 
Here Related — Alleged Mutinous Company Next Day Gallantly 
Fighting — Harsh Term Mutiny Not Applied By Unbiased Judges. 

Four weeks to nine or twelve weeks elapsed between mailing and receiving. 
It is known that both ignorance and indifference were contributing causes. 
We know there is in existence a file of courteous correspondence between 
American and British G. H. Q. over some bags of American mail that was 
left lying for a time at Murmansk when it might just as well have been for- 
warded to Archangel for there were no Americans at that time on the 
Murmansk. 

Many slips between the arrival of mail at Archangel and its distribu- 
tion to the troops. How indignant a line officer at the front was one day 
to hear a visitor from the American G. H. Q. say that he had forgotten to 
bring the mail bags down on his train. Sometimes delivery by airplane 
resulted in dropping the sacks in the deep woods to be object of curiousity 
only to foxes and wolves and whitebreasted crows, but of no comfort to 
the lonesome, disappointed soldiers. 

Ships foundered off the coast of Norway with tons of mail. Sleds in 
the winter were captured by the Bolos on the lines of communication. These 
troubles in getting mail into Russia led the soldiers to think that there might 
be equal difficulty in their letters reaching home. And it certainly looked 
that way when cablegrams began insistently inquiring for many and many 
a soldier whose letters had either not been written, or destroyed by the 
censor, or lost in transit. 

And that leads to the discussion of what were to the soldier rather ter- 
rifying rules of censorship. Intended to contribute to his safety and to the 
comfort and peace of mind of his home folks the way in which the rulei 
were administered worked on the minds of the soldiers. Let it be said right 
here that the American soldier heartily complied in most cases with the 
rules. He did not try to break the rules about giving information that might 
be of value to the enemy. And when during the winter there began to 
come into North Russia clippings from American and British newspapers 
which bore more or less very accurate and descriptive accounts of the loca- 
tions and operations, even down to the strategy, of the various scattered 
units, they wondered why they were not permitted after the Armistice espe- 
cially, to write such things home. 

223 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

And if as happened far too frequently, a man's batch of ancient letters 
that came after weeks of waiting, contained a brace of scented but whining 
epistles from the girl he had left behind him and perhaps a third one from 
a man friend who told how that same girl was running about with a slacker 
who had a fifteen-dollar a day job. the man had to be a jewel and a philoso- 
pher not to become bitter. And a bitter man deteriorates as a soldier. 

To the credit of our veterans who were in North Russia let it be said 
that comparatively very few of them wrote sob-stuff home. They knew it 
was hard enough for the folks anyway, and it did themselves no good either. 
The imaginative "Scoops" among the cub reporters and the violently in- 
flamed imaginations and utterances of partisan politicians seeking to puflf 
their political sails with stories of hardships of our men in North Russia, 
all these and many other very well-meaning people were doing much to 
aggravate the fears and sufferings of the people at home. Many a doughboy 
at the front sighed wearily and shook his head doubtfully over the mess 
of sob-stuff that came uncensored from the States. He sent costly cable- 
grams to his loved ones at home to assure them that he was safe and not 
"sleeping in water forty degrees below zero" and so forth. 

Not only did the screeching press articles and the roars of certain con- 
gressmen keep the homefolks in perpetual agony over the soldiers in Russia, 
but the reports of the same that filtered in through the mails to our front 
line campfires and Archangel comfortable billets caused trouble and heart- 
burnings among the men. It seems incredible how much of it the men fell 
for. But seeing it in their own home paper, many of the men actually 
believed tales that when told in camp were laughed off as plain scandalous 
rumor. 

War is not fought in a comfortable parlor or club-room, but some of the 
tales which slipped through the censor from spineless cry-babies in our 
ranks of high and low rank, and were published in the States and then in 
clippings found their way back to North Russia, lamented the fact of the 
handship of war in such insidious manner as to furnish the most formidable 
foe to morale with which the troops had to cope while in Russia. The 
Americans only laughed at Bolshevik propaganda which they clearly saw 
through. To the statement that the Reds would bring a million rifles against 
Archangel they only replied, "Let 'em come, the thicker grass the heavier 
the swath." 

But when a man's own home paper printed the same story of the million 
men advancing on Archangel with bloody bayonets fixed, and told of the 
horrible hardships the soldier endured — and many of them were indeed severe 
hardships although most of the news stories were over-drawn and untruth- 
ful, and coupled with these stories were shrieks at the war department to 
get the boys out of Russia, together with stories of earnest and intended- 
to-help petitions of the best people of the land, asking and pleading the war 
department to get the boys out of Russia, then the doughboy's spirit was 
depressed. 

Suffer he did occasionally. Many of his comrades had a lot of suffering 
from cold. But aside from the execrable boot that Sir Shakleton had dreamed 

224 



i 







Pioneer Platoon Has Fire at 455 



U. S. OFFICIAL PHOrO 




OFFICIAL PHOTO 



310th Engineers Near Bolsheozerki 





Ho.-^pUal "A'. P.'.v" 



U. S OFFICIAL PHOTO 

Red Cro.s.s Nurses 




Bartering 



U S OFFICIAL 




Mascots 



S OFFICIAL PHOTO 




Polish Artillery and Mascot 



U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO 







Russian Artillery, Verst IS 



S. OFFICIAL PHOTO 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

into existence, he himself possessed more warm clothing than he liked to 
carry around with him. But not a few soldiers forgot to look around and 
take sober stock of their actual situation and fell prey to this sob-stuff. 
Fortunately for the great majority of them, and this goes for every com- 
pany, the great rank and file of officers and men never lost their heads and 
their stout hearts. 

And now we may as well deal with the actual facts in regard to the 
alleged mutiny of American troops in North Russia. There was no mutiny. 

In February Colonel Stewart had cabled to the War Department that 
"The alarmist reports of condition of troops in North Russia as published 
in press end of December are not warranted by facts. Troops have been 
well taken care of in every way and my officers resent these highly exag- 
gerated reports, feeling that slur is cast upon the regiment and its wonder- 
ful record. Request that this be given to the press and especially to Detroit 
and Chicago papers to allay any unnecessary anxiety." 

He was approximately correct in his statements. His intent was a per- 
fectly worthy one. But it was not believed by the wildly excited people back 
home. Perhaps if the war department had been entirely frank with the peo- 
ple in cases, say, like the publication of casualty reports and reports of 
engagements, then its well-meant censorship and its attempts to allay fear 
might have done some good. 

As it was the day, March 31st, 1919, came when a not unwilling British 
cable was scandalled and a fearsome press and people was startled with the 
story of an alleged mutiny of a company of American troops in North Russia. 
The "I-told-you-so's" and the "wish-they-would's" of the States were gratified. 
The British War Office was, too, and made the most of the story to prop- 
agandize its tired veterans and its late-drafted youths who had been denied 
part in war by the sudden Armistice. Those were urged to volunteer for 
service in North Russia, where it was alleged their English comrades had 
been left unsupported by the mutinous Yanks. Yes, there was a pretty mess 
made of the story by our own War Department, too, who first was credulous 
of this really incredulous affair, tried to explain it in its usually stupid and 
ignorant way of explaining affairs in North Russia, only made a bad matter 
worse, and then finally as they should have done at first, gave the American 
Forces in North Russia a Commanding General, whose report as quoted 
from the Army and Navy Journal of April 1920, will say: 

"The incident was greatly exaggerated, but while greatly regretting 
that any insubordination took place, he praised the general conduct of 
the 339th Infantry. Colonel Richardson states that the troops were 
serving under very trying conditions, and that much more serious dis- 
affections appeared among troops of the Allies on duty in North Russia. 
He further says the disaffection in the company of the 339th Infantry, 
U. S. A., was handled by the regimental commander with discretion and 
good judgment." 

Colonel Stewart, himself, stated to the press when he led his troops home 
the following July: 

"I did not have to take arty disciplinary action against either an 
officer or soldier of the regiment in connection, with the matter, so you 

225 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

may judge that the reports that have appeared have been very, very 
greatly exaggerated. Every soldier connected with the incident per- 
formed his duty as a soldier. And as far as I am concerned, I think 
the matter should be closed." 

In a letter to a member of Congress from Michigan, Secretary Baker 
refers to the alleged mutiny as follows : 

"A cablegram, dated March 31, 1919, received from the American Mihtary 
Attache at Archangel, read in part as follows : 

" 'Yesterday morning, March 30th, a company of infantry, having 
received orders to the railroad front, was ordered out of the barracks 
for the purpose of packing sleds for the trip across the river to the 
railroad station. The non-commissioned officer that was in charge of 
the packing soon reported to the officers that the men refused to obey. 
At this some of the officers took charge, and all except one man began 
reluctantly to pack after a considerable delay. The soldier who continued 
to refuse was placed in confinement. Colonel Stewart, having been 
sent for, arrived and had the men assembled to talk with them. Upon 
the condition that the prisoner above mentioned was released, the men 
agreed to go. This was done, and the company then proceeded to the 
railway station and entrained there for the front. That they would not 
go to the front line positions was openly stated by the men, however, 
and they would only go to Obozerskaya. They also stated that general 
mutiny would soon come if there was not some definite movement 
forthcoming from Washington with regard to the removal of American 
troops from Russia at the earliest possible date.' 

"The War Department on April 10, 1919, authorized the publication of 
this cablegram, and on April 12, 1919, authorized the statement that the 
report from Murmansk was to the effect that the organization which was 
referred to was Company "I" of the 339th Infantry, and that the dispatch 
stated : 

" 'It is worthy to note that the questions that were put to the officers 
by the men were identical with those that the Bolshevik propaganda 
leaflets advised them to put to them.' 

"If reports differing from the above appeared in the newspapers, they 
were secured from sources other than the War Department and published 
without its authority. 

"On March 16, 1920, Brigadier General Wilds P. Richardson, U. S. Army, 
was ordered by the Commanding General, American Expeditionary Forces, 
to proceed to North Russia and to assume command of the American Forces 
in that locality. General Richardson arrived at Murmansk on April 8, 1920, 
where it was reported to him that a company of American troops at Arch- 
angel had mutinied and that his presence there was urgently needed. He 
arrived at Archangel on April 17, 1920, and found that conditions had been 
somewhat exaggerated, especially in respect to the alleged mutiny of the 
company of the 339th Infantry. General Richardson directed an investiga- 
tion of this matter by the Acting Inspector General, American Forces in 
North Russia. This officer states the facts to be as follows : 

" 'Company "I", 339th Infantry, was in rest area at Smallney Bar- 
racks, in the outskirts of Archangel, Russia, when orders were received 

226 



il 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

to go to the railroad point and relieve another company. The following 
morning the first sergeant ordered the company to turil out and load 
sleds. He reported to the captain that the men did not respond as 
directed. The captain then went to the barracks and demanded of the 
men standing around the stove: "Who refuses to turn out and load 
sleds?" No reply from the men. The captain then asked the trumpeter, 
who was standing nearby, if he refused to turn out and load the sleds, 
and the trumpeter replied he was ready if the balance were, but that he 
was not going out and load packs of others on the sleds by himself, 
or words to that effect. The captain then went to the phone and reported 
the trouble as "mutiny" to Col. Stewart, the Commanding Officer, Amer- 
ican Forces in North Russia. Col. Stewart directed him to have the 
men assemble in Y. M. C. A. hut and he would be out at once and talk 
to them. The colonel arrived and read the Article of War as to mutiny 
and talked to the men a few minutes. He then said he was ready to 
answer any questions the men cared to ask. Some one wanted to know 
'What are we here for and what are the intentions of the U. S. Govern- 
ment?' The colonel answered this as well as he could. He then asked 
if there was anyone of the company who would not obey the order to 
load the sleds ; if so, step up to the front. No one moved. The colonel 
then directed the men to load the sleds without delay, which was done. 
" 'The testimony showed that the captain commanding Company "I", 
339th Infantry, did not order his company formed nor did he ever give 
a direct order for the sleds to be loaded. He did not report this trouble 
to the commanding officer (a field officer) of Smallney Barracks, but 
hastened to phone his troubles to the Commanding Officer, American 
Forces in North Russia.' 

"The inspector further states that the company was at the front when 
the investigation was being made (May, 1919) and that the service of all 
concerned, at that time, was considered satisfactory by the battalion com- 
mander. 

"The conclusions of the inspector were that from such evidence as could 
be obtained the alleged mutiny was nothing like as serious as had been 
reported, but that it was of such a nature that it could have been handled 
by a company officer of force. 

"The inspector recommended to the Commanding General, American 
Forces, North Russia, that the matter be droppe4 and considered closed. 
The Commanding General, American Forces, North Russia, concurred in 
this recommendation. 

"General Richardson, in his report of operations on the American Forces 
in North Russia, referring to this matter states: 

" 'MORALE. Archangel and North Russia reflected in high degree 
during the past winter the disturbed state of the civilized world after 
four years of devastating war. The military situation was difficult and 
at times menacing. 

" 'Our troops in this surrounding, facing entirely new experiences 
and uncertain as to the future, bore themselves as a whole with cour- 
ageous and creditable spirit. It was inevitable that there should be 
uilrest, with some criticism and complaint, which represented the normal 
per cent chargeable to the human equation under such conditions. This 
culminated, shortly before my arrival, in a temporary disaffection of one 
of the companies. This appears not to have extended beyond the privates 
in ranks, and was handled by the regimental commander with discretion 
and good judgment. 

327 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

" 'This incident was given wide circulation in the States, and I am 
satisfied from my investigation that an exaggerated impression was 
created as to its seriousness. It is regrettable that it should have hap- 
pened at all, to mar in any degree the record of heroic and valiant 
service performed by this regiment under very trying conditions.' 

"The above are the facts in regard to this matter, and it is hoped that 
this information may meet your requirements. 

"Very sincerely yours, 

"NEWTON D. BAKER, 

"Secretary of War." 

However, as a matter of history the facts must be told in this volume. 
"I" Company of the 339th Infantry, commanded by Captain Horatio G. 
Winslow, was on the 30th of March stationed at Smolny Barracks, Arch- 
angel, Russia. It had been resting for a few days there after a long period 
of service on the front. The spirit of the men had been high for the most 
part, although as usual in any large group of soldiers at rest there was 
some of what Frazier Hunt, the noted war correspondent, calls "good, 
healthy grousing." The men had the night before given a fine minstrel 
entertainment in the Central Y. M. C. A. 

Group psychology and atmospheric conditions have to be taken into con- 
sideration at this point. By atmospheric conditions we mean the half-truths 
and rumors and expressions of feeling that were in the air. A sergeant of 
the company questioned carefully by the writer states positively that the 
expressions of ugliness were confined to comparatively few members of the 
company. The feeling seemed to spread through the company that morn- 
ing that some of the men were going to speak their minds. 

Here another fact must be introduced. A few nights before this there 
had been a fire in camp that spread to their barracks and burned the com- 
pany out, resulting in the splitting of the company into two separated parts, 
and in giving the little first sergeant and commanding officer inconvenience 
in conveying orders and directions to the men. And it was rumored in the 
morning in one barracks that the men of the other barracks were starting 
something. The platoon officer in command there had gone to the front to 
make arrangements for the billetting and transportation of troops, who were 
to start that day for the front some several miles south of Obozerskaya. 
Now the psychology began to work. Why hurry the loading, let's see what 
the men of that platoon now will do. 

The captain notices the delay in proceedings. He has heard a little some- 
thing of what is in the air. It is nothing serious, yet he is nervous about it. 
His first sergeant, a nervous and a nervy little man too, for Detroit has 
seen the Croix de Guerre he won, showed anxiety over the dilatoriness of 
the men in loading the sleighs. And the men were only just human in 
wanting to see what the captain was going to do about that other platoon 
that was rumored to be starting something. Of course in the psychology 
of the thing it was not in their minds that they would be called upon to 
express themselves. The others were going to do that. 

228 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

But when the captain went directly to the men and asked them what 
they were thinking and feeling they found themselves talking to him. Here 
and there a man spoke bitterly about the Russian regiments in Archangel 
not doing anything but drill in Archangel. Of course he had only half- 
truth. That is the way misunderstandings and bad feelings feed. At that 
moment a company of the Archangel Regiment was at a desperate front, 
Bolsheozerki, standing shoulder to shoulder with "M" Company out of "I" 
Company's own battalion. But these American soldiers at that moment 
with their feelings growing warmer with expression of them, thought only 
of the drilling Russian soldiers in Archangel and of the S. B. A. L. soldiers 
who had mutinied earlier in the winter and been subdued by American sol- 
diers in Archangel. And so if the truth be told, those soldiers spoke boldly 
enough to their captain to alarm him. He thought that he really had a 
serious condition before him. 

From remarks by the men he judged that for the sake of the men and 
the chief commanding officer, Colonel Stewart, it would be well to have a 
meeting in the Y. M. C. A. where they could be properly informed, where 
they could see ALL that was going on and not be deluded by the rumors 
that other groups of the company were doing something else, and where 
the common sense of the great, great majority of the men would show them 
the foolishness of the whole thing. And he invited the colonel to appear. 

Meanwhile the senior first lieutenant of the company, Lieut. Albert E. May, 
one of the levelest-headed officers in the regiment, had put the first and only 
man who showed signs of insubordination to an officer under arrest. It 
developed afterward that the lieutenant was a little severe with the man as 
he really had not understood the command, he being a man who spoke little 
English and in the excitement was puzzled by the order and showed the 
"hesitation" of which so much was made in the wild accounts that were pub- 
lished. This arrest was afterward corrected when three sergeants of the 
platoon assured the officer that the man had not really intended insubordina- 
tion. 

It is regrettable that the War Department was so nervous about this 
affair that it would be fooled into making the explanation of this "hesita- 
tion" on the ground of the man's Slavic genesis and the pamphlet propa- 
ganda of the Reds. The first three men who died in action were Slavs. 
The Slavs who went from Hamtramck and Detroit to Europe made them- 
selves proud records as fighters. Hundreds of them who had not been 
naturalized were citizens before they took off the O. D. uniform in which 
they had fought. It was a cruel slur upon the manhood of the American 
soldier to make such explanations upon such slight evidences. It would 
seem as though the War Department could have borne the outcry of the 
people till the Commanding Officer of those troops could send detailed report. 
And as for the Red pamphlets, every soldier in North Russia was disgusted 
with General March's explanations and comments. 

To return to the account, let it be said, Colonel Stewart, when he appeared 
at the Y. M. C. A. saw no murmurous, mutinous, wildly excited men, such as 
the mob psychology of a mutiny would necessarily call for. Instead, he saw 

2S9 



4 THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

men seated orderly and respectfully. And they listened to his remarks that 
cleared up the situation and to his proud declaration that American soldiers 
on duty never quit till the job is done or they are relieved. Questions 
were allowed and were answered squarely and plainly. 

While the colonel had been coming from his headquarters the remainder 
of the loading had been done under direction of Lieut. May as referred to be- 
fore, and at the conclusion of the colonel's address, Captain Winslow moved 
his men off across the frozen Dvina, proceeded as per schedule to Obozer- 
skaya, put them on a troop train, and as related elsewhere took over the 
front line at a critical time, under heavy attack, and there the very next 
day after the little disaffection and apparent insubordination, which was 
magnified into a "mutiny," his company added a bright page to its already 
shining record as fighters. The editors have commented upon this at another 
place in the narrative. We wish here to state that we do not see how an 
unbiased person could apply so harsh a term as mutiny to this incident. 

The allegation has been proved to be false. There was no mutiny. Any 
further repetition of the allegation will be a cruel slander upon the good 
name of the heroic men who were killed in action or died of wounds received 
in action in that desperate winter campaign in the snows of Russia. And 
further repetition of the allegation will be insult to the brave men who sur- 
vived that campaign and now as citizens have a right to enjoy the com- 
mendations of their folks and friends and fellow citizens because of the 
remarkably good record they made in North Russia as soldiers and men. 



^80 



XXXI 

Our Allies, French, British and Russians 

Kaleidoscopic Picture And Chop Suey Talk In Archangel— Poilu Com- 
rades — Captain Boyer — Dupayet, Reval And Major Alabernarde — 
"Ze French Sarzhont, She Say" — Scots And British Marines Fine 
Soldiers — Canadians Popular — Yorks Stand Shoulder To Shoulder — 
Tribute To General Ironside — Daredevil "Bob" Graham Of "Aus- 
tralian Light Horse" — Commander Young Of Armored Train — 
Slavo- British Allied Legion — French Legion — White Guards — Arch- 
angel Regiments — Chinese — Deliktorsky, Mozalevski, Akutin. 

What a kaleidoscopic recollection of uniforms and faces we have v*rhen 
one asks us about our allies in North Russia. What a mixture of voices, 
of gutturals and spluttering and yeekings and chatterings, combined with 
pursing of lips, eyebrow-twistings, bugging eyes, whiskers and long hair, 
and common hand signs of distress or delight or urgency or decisiveness : 
Nitchevo, bonny braw, tres bien, khorashaw, finish, oi soiy, beaucoup, 
cheerio, spitzka, mozhnya barishna, c'mon kid, parlezvous, douse th' glim, 
yah ocean, dobra czechinski, amia spigetam, ei geh ha wa yang wa, lubloo, 
howse th' chow, pardonne, pawrdun, scuse, eesveneets, — all these and more 
too, strike the ear of memory as we tread again the board sidewalks of far 
off smelly Archangel, 

What antics we witnessed, good humored miscues and errors of form in 
meeting our friends of different lands all gathered there in the strange pot- 
pourri. Soldiers and "civies" of high and low rank, cultured and ignorant, and 
rich and poor, hearty and well, and halting and lame, mingled in Archangel, 
the half-shabby, half-neat, half-modern, half-ancient, summer-time port on 
the far northern sea. Rags and red herrings, and broadcloth and books, and 
O. D. and Khaki, and horizon blue, crowded the dinky ding-ding tramway 
and counted out kopecs to the woman conductor. 

And many are the anecdotes that are told of men and occasions in North 
Russia where some one of our allies or bunch of them figures prominently, 
either in deed of daring, or deviltry, or simply good humor. Chiefly of our 
own buddies we recall such stories to be sure, but in justice to the memory of 
some of the many fine men of other lands who served with us we print a 
page or two of anecdotes about them. And we hope that some day we may 
show them Detroit or some other good old American burg, or honk-honk 
them cross country through farm lands we now better appreciate than before 
we saw Europe, by woods, lake and stream to camp in the warm summer, 
or spend winter nights in a land with us as hosts, a land where life is really 
worth living. 

Those "mah-sheen" gunners in blue on the railroad who stroked their 
field pets with pride and poured steady lines of fire into the pine woods 
where lay the Reds who were encircling the Americans with rifle and machine 

231 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

gun fire. How the Yankee soldiers liked them. And many a pleasant 
draught they had from the big pinaud canteen that always came fresh from 
the huge cask. How courteously they taught the doughboy machine gunner 
the little arts of digging in and rejoiced at the rapid progress of the Ameri- 
can. 

How now, Paul, my poilu comrade, bon ami, why don't you add the 
house itself to the pack on your back? Sure, you'll scramble along somehow 
to the rest of the camp in the rear, and on your way you will pass bright 
remarks that we non compree but enjoy just the same, for we know 
you are wishing the doughboy good luck. How droll your antics when 
hard luck surprises. We swear and you grimace or paw wildly the air. 
And we share a common dislike for the asperity shown by the untactful, 
inefficient, bulldozing old Jack. 

Here is a good story that "Buck" Carlson used to tell in his inimitable 
way. Scene is laid in the headquarters of the British Colonel who is having 
a little difficulty with his mixed command that contains soldiers of America, 
France, Poland, China, where not, but very few from England at that 
time. A French sergeant with an interpreter enters the room and salutes 
are exchanged. The sergeant then orders his comrade to convey his request 
to the colonel. 

"Ker-nell, par-don," says the little interpreter after a snappy French 
salute which is recognized by a slight motion of the colonel's thumb in the 
general direction of his ear. "Ze sarzhont, she say, zat ze French man will 
please to have ze tobak, ze masheen gun am-mu-nish-own and ze soap." 

"But, my man," says the colonel reddening, "I told you to tell the sergeant 
he should go on as ordered and these things will come later, I have none 
of these things now to give him, but they will soon arrive and he shall be 
supplied. But now he must hurry out with his detachment of machine 
gunners to help the Americans. Go, my man." More salutes and another 
conversation between the two French soldiers with arms and spit flying 
furiously. 

"Ker-nell, sir, par-don, again, but ze sar-zhont, she say, zat wiz-out 
ze to-bak, ze am-mu-nish-own and ze soap, he weel not go, par-don, ker-nell !" 

This time the colonel was angered to popping point and he smote the 
table with a thump that woke every bedbug and cockroach in the building 
and the poor French interpreter looked wildly from the angry British 
colonel to his tough old French sergeant who now leaped quickly to his 
side and barked Celtic rejoinder to the colonel's fist thumping language. No 
type could tell the story of the critical next moment. Suffice it to say that 
after the storm had cleared the colonel was heard reporting the disobedience 
to a French officer miles in the rear. The officer had evidently heard 
quickly from his sergeant and was inclined to back him up, for in substance 
he said to the offended British officer : "Wee, pardon, mon ker-nell, it 
eez bad," meaning I am sorry, "but will ze gallant ker-nell please to remem- 
ber zat consequently zare eez no French offitzair wiz ze French de-tach- 
mont, ze sar-zhont will be treated wiz ze courtesy due to ze offitzair.'' 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

And it was true that the sergeant, backed up by his French officer, 
refused to go as ordered till his men had been supplied with the necessary 
ammunition and "ze to-bak and ze soap." The incident illustrates the fact 
that the French officer's relation to his enlisted men is one of cordial 
sympathy. He sees no great gulf between officer and enlisted man which 
the British service persists to set up between officers and enlisted men. 

Hop to it, now Frehchie, you surely can sling 'em. We need a whole 
lot from your 75's. We are guarding your guns, do not fear for the flanks. 
Just send that barrage to the Yanks at the front. And how they do send it. 
And we remember that the French artillery officers taught the Russians how 
to handle the guns well and imbued them with the same spirit of service 
to the infantry. And many a Red raid in force and well-planned attack 
was discouraged by the prompt and well-put shrapnel from our French 
artillery. 

And there was Boyer. First we saw him mud-spattered and grimy 
crawling from a dugout at Obozerskaya, day after his men had won the 
"po-zee-shown." His animation he seems to communicate to his leg-wearied 
men who crowd round him to hear that the Yanks are come to relieve them. 
With great show of fun but serious intent, too, he "marries the squads" 
of Americans and Frenchies as they amalgamate for the joint attack. "Kat- 
tsank-awn-tsank" comes to mean 455 as he talks first in French to his poilus 
and then through our Detroit doughboy French interpreter to the doughboys. 
Captain he is of a Colonial regiment, veteran of Africa and every front in 
Europe, with palm-leafed war cross, highest his country can give him, Boyer. 
He relies on his soldiers and they on him. "Fires on your outposts, captain?" 
"Out, out, nitchevo, not ever mind, out, comrade," he said laughingly. His 
soldiers built the fires so as to show the Reds where they dare not come. 
Truth was he knew his men must dry their socks and have a warm spot to 
sit by and clean their rifles. He trusted to their good sense in concealing 
the fire and to know when to run it very low with only the glowing coals, 
to which the resting soldier might present the soles of his snoozing shoes. 
Captain Boyer, to you, and to your men. 

It is not easy to pass over the names of Dupayet and Reval and Aleber- 
narde. For dynamic energy the first one stands. For linguistic aid the 
second. How friendly and clear his interpretation of the orders of the 
French command, given written or oral. Soldier of many climes he. With 
songs of nations on his lips and the sparkle of mirth in his eye. "God 
Save the King," he uttered to the guard as password when he supposed 
the outguard to be a post of Tommies, and laughingly repeated to the 
American officer the quick response of the Yank sentryman who said: "To 
hell with any king, but pass on French lieutenant, we know you are a friend." 

And Alabernarde, sad-faced old Major du Battalion, often we see you 
passing among the French and American soldiers along with Major Nichols. 
Your eyes are crow-tracked with experiences on a hundred fields and your 
bronzed cheek hollowed from consuming service in the World War. We 
see the affectionate glances of poilus that leap out at sight of you. You 
hastened the equipment of American soldiers with the automatics they so 

233 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

much needed and helped them to French ordnance stores generously. Fate 
treated you cruelly that winter and left you in a wretched dilemma with your 
men in March on the railroad. We would forget that episode in which your 
men figured, and remember rather the comradery of the fall days with them 
and the inspiration of your soldierly excellence. To you, Major Alabernarde. 

On the various fronts in the fall the doughboy's acquaintance with the 
British allies was Umited quite largely, and quite unfortunately we might 
say, to the shoulder strappers. And all too many of those out-ranked and 
seemed to lord it over the doughboy's own officers, much to his disgust 
and indignation. What few units of Scots and English Marines and Liver- 
pools got into action with the Americans soon won the respect and regard 
of the doughboys in spite of their natural antipathy, which was edged by 
their prejudice against the whole show which was commonly thought to be 
one of British conception. Tommie and Scot were often found at Kodish 
and Toulgas and on the Onega sharing privations and meagre luxuries of 
tobacco and food with their recently made friends among the Yanks. 

And in the winter the Yorks at several places stood shoulder to shoulder 
with doughboys on hard-fought lines. Friendships were started between 
Yanks and Yorks as in the fall they had grown between Frenchies and 
Americans, Scots and Yanks, and Liverpools and Detroiters. Bitter fighting 
on a back-to-the-wall defense had brought the EngHsh and American officers 
together also. Arrogance and antipathy had both dissolved largely in the 
months of joint military operations and better judgment and kinder feehngs 
prevailed. Grievances there are many to be recalled. And they were not 
all on one side. But except as they form part of the military narrative 
with its exposure of causes and effects in the fall and winter and spring 
campaigns, those grievances may mostly be buried. Rather may we remem- 
ber the not infrequent incidents of comradeship on the field or in lonely 
garrison that brightened the relationships between Scots and Yorks and 
Marines and Liverpools in Khaki on the one hand and the O. D. cousins 
from over the sea who were after all not so bad a lot, and were willing 
to acknowledge merit in the British cousin. 

It must be said that Canadians, Scots, Yorks and Tommies stood in 
about this order in the affections of the Yankee soldiers. The boys who 
fought with support of the Canadian artillery up the rivers know them 
for hard fighters and true comrades. And on the railroad detachment 
American doughboys one day in November were glad to give the Canadian 
officer complimentary present-arms when he received his ribbon on his 
chest, evidence of his election to the D. S. O., for gallantry in action. 
Loyally on many a field the Canadians stood to their guns till they were 
exhausted, but kept working them because they knew their Yankee comrades 
needed their support. 

One of the pictures in this volume shows a Yank and a Scot together 
standing guard over a bunch of Bolshevik prisoners at a point up the Dvina 
River. American doughboys risked their lives in rescuing wounded Scots 
and the writer has a vivid remembrance of seeing a fine expression of 

S34 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

comradeship between Yanks and Scots and American sailors starting off 
on a long, dangerous march. 

Mention has been made in another connection of the friendship and 
admiration of the American soldiers for the men of the battalion of Yorks. 
In the three day's battle at Verst 18 a York sergeant over and over assured 
the American officer that he would at all times have a responsible York 
standing beside the Russki machine gunner and prevent the green soldiers 
from firing wildly without order in case the Bolshevik should gain some 
slight advantage and a necessary shift of American soldiers might be inter- 
preted by the green Russian machine gunners as a movement of the enemy. 
And those machine guns which were stationed at a second line, in rear of 
the Americans, never went off. The Yorks were on the job. And after 
the crisis was past an American corporal asked his company commander to 
report favorably upon the gallant conduct of a York corporal who had 
stood by him with six men all through the fight. 

Of the King's Liverpools and other Tommies mention has been made 
in these pages. Sometimes we have to fight ourselves into favor with one 
another. Really there is more in common between Yank and Tommie than 
there is of divergence. Hardship and danger, tolerance and observation, 
these brought the somewhat hostile and easily irritated Yank and Tommie 
together. Down underneath the rough slams and cutting sarcasm there 
exists after all a real feeling of respect for the other. 

This volume would not be complete without some mention of that man 
who acted as commanding general of the Allied expedition, William Edmund 
Ironside. He was every inch a soldier and a man. American soldiers will 
remember their first sight of him. They had heard that a big man up at 
Archangel who had taken Gen. Poole's job was cleaning house among the 
incompetents and the "John Walkerites" that had surrounded G. H. Q. in 
Poole's time. He was putting pep into G. H. Q. and reorganizing the 
various departments. 

When he came, he more than came up to promises. Six foot-four and 
built accordingly, with a bluff, open countenance and a blue eye that spoke 
honesty and demanded truth. Hearty of voice and breathing cheer and 
optimism. General Ironside inspired confidence in the American troops who 
had become very much disgruntled. He was seen on every front at some 
time and often seen at certain points. By boat or sledge or plane he made 
his way through. He was the soldier's type of commanding officer. Never 
dependent on an interpreter whether with Russian, Pole, or French, or 
Serbian, or Italian, he travelled light and never was seen with a pistol, 
even for protection. Master of fourteen languages it was said of him, 
holder of an Iron Cross bestowed on him by the Kaiser in an African 
war when he acted as an ox driver but in fact was observing for the 
British artillery, on whose staff he had been a captain though he was only 
a youth, he was a giant intellectually as well as physically. 

When British fighting troops could not be spared from the Western 
Front in the fall of 1918 and the British War Office gambled on sending 
category B men to Archangel — men not considered fit to undergo active 

335 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

warfare, a good healthy general had to be found. Ironside, lover of forlorn 
hopes, master of the Russian language, a good mixer, and experienced in 
dealing with amalgamated forces, was the obvious man. Of course, there 
were some British officers who bemoaned the fact, in range of American 
ears too, that some titled high ranking officers were passed over to reach 
out to this Major of Artillery to act as Major-General. And he was on 
the youthful side of forty, too. 

Edmund Ironside ought to have been born in the days of Drake, Raleigh, 
and Cromwell. He would have a bust in Westminster and his picture in 
the history books. But in his twenty years of army life he has done some 
big things and it can be imagined with what gusto he received his orders 
to relieve Poole and undertook to redeem the expedition, to make something 
of the perilous, forlorn hope under the Arctic winter skies. 

In The American Sentinel issue of December 10th, which was the first 
issue of our soldier paper, we read : 

"It is a great honor for me to be able to address the first words in 
the first Archangel paper for American soldiers. I have now served in 
close contact with the U. S. Army for eighteen months and I am proud 
to have a regiment of the U. S. Army under my command in Russia. 

"I wish all the American soldiers the best wishes for the coming 
Christmas and New Year and I want them to understand that the Allied 
High Command takes the very greatest interest in their welfare at 
all times." 

EDMUND IRONSIDE, Major-General. 

Without doubt the General was sincere in his efforts to bring about 
harmony and put punch and strength into the high command sections as 
well as into the line troops. But what a bag Poole left him to hold. Vexed 
to death must that big man's heart have been to spend so much time setting 
Allies to rights who had come to cross purposes with one another and 
were blinded to their own best interests. British thought he was too lenient 
with the wilful Americans. Americans thought he was pampering the 
French. British, French and Americans thought he was letting the Russkis 
slip something over on the whole Allied expedition. Green-eyed jealousy, 
provincial jealousy, just plain foolish jealousy tormented the man who was 
soon disillusioned as to the glories to be won in that forlorn expedition 
but who never exhibited anything but an undaunted optimistic spirit. He 
was human. When he was among the soldiers and talking to them it was 
not hard for them to believe the tale that after all he was an American 
himself, a Western Canadian who had started his career as a military man 
with the Northwest Mounted Police. 

An American corporal for several weeks had been in the field hospital 
near the famous Kodish Front. One day General Ironside leaned over his 
bunk and said : "What's the trouble, corporal ?" The reply was, "Rheuma- 
tism, sir." At which the British hospital surgeon asserted that he thought 
the rheumatism was a matter of the American soldier's imagination. But 
he regretted the remark, for the general, looking sternly at the officer, said: 
"Don't talk to me that way about a soldier. I know, if you do not, that 
many a young man, with less exposure than these men have had in these 

236 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

swamps, contracts rheumatism. Do not confuse the aged man's gout with 
the young man's muscular rheumatism." Then he turned his back on the 
surgeon and said heartily to the corporal : "You look like a man with lots 
of grit. Cheer up, maybe the worst is over and you will be up and around 
soon. I hope so." 

And there was many a British officer who went out there to Russia who 
won the warm friendship of Americans. Of course, those were short 
friendships. But men live a lot in a small space in war. One day a young 
second lieutenant — and those were rare in the British uniforms, for the 
British War Office had given the commanding general generous leeway in 
adding local rank to the under officers — had come out to a distant sector 
to estimate the actual needs in signal equipment. He rode a Russian horse 
to visit the outpost line of the city. He rode in a reindeer sled to the 
lines which the Russian partisan forces were holding. He sat down in the 
evening to that old Russian merchant trader's piano, in our headquarters, 
and rambled from chords and airs to humoresque and rhapsodies. And 
the American and Russian officers and the orderlies and batmen each in 
his own place in the spacious rooms melted into a tender hearing that 
feared to move lest the spell be broken and the artist leave the instrument. 
Men who did not know how lonesome they had been and who had missed 
the refinements of home more than they knew, blessed the player with their 
pensive listening, thanked fortune they were still alive and had chances 
of fighting through to get home again. And after playing ceased the British 
officer talked quietly of his home and the home folks and Americans thought 
and talked of theirs. And it was good. It was an event. 

In sharp contrast is the vivid memory of that picturesque Lt. Bob 
Graham of the Australian Light Horse. He could have had anything the 
doughboy had in camp and they would have risked their lives for him, too, 
after the day he ran his Russian lone engine across the bridge at Verst 
458 into No Man's Land and leaped from the engine into a marsh covered 
by the Bolo machine guns and brought out in his own arms an American 
doughboy. Starting merely a daredevil ride into No Man's Land, his roving 
eye had spied the doughboy delirious and nearly dead flopping feebly in 
the swamp. 

Hero of Gallipoli's ill-fated attempt, scarred with more than a score 
of wounds; with a dead man's shin bone in the place of his left upper 
arm bone that a Hun shell carried off ; with a silver plate in his head-shell ; 
victim of as tragic an occurrence as might befall any man, when as a 
sergeant in the Flying Squadron in France he saw a young officer's head 
blown off in a trench, and it was his own son. Bob Graham, "Australian 
Force" on the Railroad Detachment, was missed by the doughboys when he 
was ordered to report to Archangel. 

There the heroic Bob went to the bad. He participated in the shooting 
out of all the lights in the Paris cafe of the city in regular wild western 
style; he was sent up the river for his health; he fell in with an American 
corporal whose acquaintance he had made in a sunnier clime, when the 
American doughboy had been one of the Marines in Panama and Bob 

237 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

ft 

Graham was an agent of the United Fruit Company. They stole the British 
officer's bottled goods and trafficked unlawfully with the natives for fowls 
and vegetables to take to the American hospital, rounded up a dangerous 
band of seven spies operating behind our lines, but made such nuisances 
of themselves, especially the wild Australian "second looie," that he was 
ordered back to Archangel. There the old general, who knew of his 
wonderful fighting record, at last brought him on to the big carpet. And 
the conversation was something like this : 

"Graham, what is the matter? You have gone mad. I had the order 
to strip you of your rank as an officer to see if that would sober you. But 
an order from the King today by cable raises you one rank and now no 
one but the King himself can change your rank. You deserved the promotion 
but as you are going now it is no good to you. All I can do is to send 
you back to England. But I do not mean it as a disgrace to you. I could 
wish that you would give me your word that you would stop this madness 
of yours." And the general looked kindly at Bob. 

"Sir, you have been white with me. You have a right to know why I 
have been misbehaving these last weeks. Here, sir, is a letter that came 
to me the day I helped shoot up the cafe. In Belgium I married an 
American Red Cross nurse. This is a picture of her and the new-born 
son come to take the place of the grown-up son who fell mortally wounded 
in my arms in France. To her and the baby I was bound to go if I had 
to drink Russia dry of all the shipped-in Scotch and get myself reduced 
to the ranks for insubordination and deviltry. Sir, I'm fed up on war. I 
thank you for sending me back to England." 

And Corporal Aldrich tells us that his old friend Bob Graham's present 
address is First National Bank, Mobile, Alabama. His father, an immigrant 
via Canada from old Dundee in Scotland, was elected governor of Alabama 
on the dry issue. And officers and doughboys who knew the wild Australian 
in North Russia know that his father might have had some help if Bob 
were at home. With a genial word for every man, with a tender heart that 
winced to see a child cry, with a nimble wit and a brilliant daring, Lt. Bob 
Graham won a place in the hearts of Americans that memory keeps warm. 

And other British officers might be mentioned. There was. for example, 
the grizzled naval officer. Commander Young, whose left sleeve had been 
emptied at Zeebrugge, running our first armored train. We missed his 
cheery countenance and courteous way of meeting American soldiers and 
officers when he left us to return to England to take a seat in Parliament 
which the Socialists had elected him to. We can see him again in memory 
with his Polish gunners, his Russian Lewis gun men, standing in his car 
surrounded by sand bags and barbed wire, knocking hot wood cinders from 
his neck, which the Russki locomotive floated back to him. And many a 
time we were moved to bless him when his guns far in our rear spoke 
cheeringly to our ears as they sent whining shells curving over us to fall 
upon the enemy. It is no discredit to say that many a time the doughboy's 
eye was filled with a glistening drop of emotion when his own artillery 
had sprung to action and sent that first booming retort. And some of those 

838 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

moments are bound in memory with the blue-coated figure of the gallant 
Commander Young. 

The Russian Army of the North was non-existent when the Allies landed. 
All the soldiery previously in evidence had moved southward with the 
last of the lootings of Archangel and joined the armies of the soviet at 
Vologda, or were forming up the rear guard to dispute the entrance of 
the Allies to North Russia. The Allied Supreme Command in North 
Russia, true to its dream of raising over night a million men opened re- 
cruiting offices in Archangel and various outlying points, thinking that 
the population would rally to the banners (and the ration carts) in 
droves. But the large number of British officers waited in vain for 
months and months for the pupils to arrive to learn all over the arts 
of war. At last after six months two thousand five hundred recruits 
had been assembled by dint of advertising and coaxing and pressure. 
They were called the Slavo-British Allied Legion, S. B. A. L. for short. 

These Slavo-Brits as they were called never distinguished themselves 
except in the slow goose step — much admired by Colonel Stewart, who 
pointed them out to one of his captains as wonders of precision, and 
also distinguished themselves in eating. They failed several times 
under fire, once they caused a riffle of real excitement in Archangel when 
they started a mutiny, and finally they were used chiefly as labor units 
and as valets and batmen for officers and horses. They were charged 
with having a mutinous spirit and with plotting to go over to 
the Bolsheviks. They did in small numbers at times. It is interesting 
to note that they were trained under British officers who enlisted them 
from among renegades, prisoners and deserters from ranks of the 
Bolsheviks, refugees and hungry willies, and that once enlisted they were 
not fed the standard British ration of food or tobacco, the which they 
held as a grievance. It never made the American soldier feel comfort- 
able to see the prisoners he had taken in action parading later in the 
S. B. A. L. uniform, and especially in the case of Russians who came 
over from the Bolo lines and gave up with suspiciously strong protesta- 
tions of dislike for their late commanders. 

The Russians who were recruited and trained by the French in the so- 
called French Legion, under the leadership of the old veteran Boyer 
who is mentioned elsewhere were found usually with a better record. 
The Courier du Bois on skiis in white clothing did remarkably valuable 
scouting and patrolling work and at times as at Kodish and Bolsheozerki 
hung off on the flanks of the encircling Bolo hordes and worried the 
attackers with great effectiveness. 

The French also had better luck in training the Russian artillery 
officers and personnel than did the British although some of the latter 
units did good work. It seemed to be a better class of Russian recruit 
that chose the artillery. Doughboys who were caught on an isolated 
road like rats in a trap will remember with favor the Russian artillery 
men who with their five field pieces on that isolated road ate, slept 
and shivered around their guns for eight days without relief, springing 

S39 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

to action in a few seconds at any call. By their effective action they 
contributed quite largely to the defense, active fighting of which fell 
upon two hundred Yanks facing more than ten times the number. Why 
should it surprise one to find an occasional Yank returned from Arch- 
angel who will say a good word for a Russian soldier. There were 
cordial relations between Americans and more than a few Russian units. 

In certain localities in the interior where the peasants had organized 
to resist the rapacious Red Guard looters, there were little companies 
of good fighters, in their own way. These were usually referred to as 
Partisans or White Guards depending upon the degree to which they 
were authorized and organized by the local county governments. They 
always at first strongly co-operated with the Allied troops, which they 
looked upon as friends sent in to help them against the Bolsheviki. To- 
ward the Americans they maintained their cordial relations throughout, 
but after the first months seemed to cool toward the other Allied troops. 
This sounds conceited, and possibly is, but the explanation seems to be that 
the Russian understood American candor and cordial democracy, the actual 
sympathetic assistance offered by the doughboy to the Russian soldier or 
laborer and took it at par value. 

Further explanation of the cooling of the ardor of the local partisans 
toward the British in particular may be found in the fact that the British 
field commanders often found it convenient and really necessary to send 
the local troops far distant from their own areas. There they lost the 
urge of defending their firesides and their families. They were in districts 
which they quite simply and honestly thought should themselves be aiding 
the British to keep off the Bolsheviki. They could not understand the 
military necessities that had perhaps called these local partisans off to some 
other part of the fighting line on those long forest fronts. He lacked the 
broader sense of nationality or even of sectionalism. And as demands 
for military action repeatedly came to him the justice of which he saw only 
darkly he became a poorer and poorer source of dependence. He would not 
put his spirit into fighting, he was quite likely to hit through the woods 
for home. 

When the Allies early in the fall found they could not forge through to 
the south, rolling up a bigger and bigger Russian force to crush the Bol- 
sheviki, who were apparently, as told us, fighting up to keep us from 
going a thousand miles or so to hit the Germans a belt — a fly-weight buffet 
as it were — and when we heard of the Armistice and began digging in on 
a real defensive in the late fall and early winter, the Provisional Government 
at Archangel under Tchaikowsky had already made some progress in 
assembling an army. In the winter small units of this Archangel army 
began co-operating in various places, and as the winter wore on, began to 
take over small portions of the line, as at Toulgas, Shred Mekrenga, Bol- 
sheozerki, usually however with a few British officers and some Allied 
soldiers to stiffen them. Although many of these men had been drafted by 
the Archangel government and as we have seen by such local county 
governments as Pinega, they were fairly well trained under old Russian 

240 




Malcing "Khleba' — Black Bread 



ROZANSKEY 




Stout Defense of Kitsa 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

officers who crept out to serve when they saw the new government meant 
business. And many capable young officers came from the British-Russian 
officers' school at Bakaritsa. 

Needless to say, these troops were at their best when they were in active 
work on the lines. Rest camp and security from attack quickly reduced 
their morale. And the next time they were sent up to the forward posts 
they were likely to prove undependable. 

In doing the ordinary drudgery of camp life the Russiail soldier as the 
doughboy saw him was very unsatisfactory. Many a Yank has itched to get 
his hands on the Russian Archangelite soldier, especially some of our hard 
old sergeants who wanted to put them on police and scavenger details to 
see them work. In this reluctance to work, their refusal sometimes even 
when the doughboy pitched into the hateful job and set them a good 
example, they were only like the civilian males whose aversion to certain 
kinds of work has been mentioned before. When some extensive piece of 
work had to be done for the Allies like policing a town, that is, cleaning 
it up for sake of health of the soldiers or smoothing off a landing place 
for airplanes, it was a problem to get the labor. 

In the erection of large buildings or bridges the Russian man's axe and 
saw and mallet and plane worked swiftly and skillfully and unceasingly 
and willingly. Those tools were to him as playthings. Not so with an 
American-made long-handled shovel in his hands. Then it was necessary 
to hire both women and men. The men thought they themselves were 
earning their pay, but as the women in Russia do most of the back-breaking, 
stooping work anyway, they just caught on to those American shovels and 
to the astonishment of the American doughboy who superintended the work 
they did twice as much as the men for just half the pay and with half 
the bossing. 

It is not a matter of false pride on the part of the Slavic male that keeps 
him from vying with his better half in doing praiseworthy work. It is lack 
of education. He has never learned. He is so constituted that he cannot 
learn quickly. He will work himself to exhaustion day after day in raising 
a house, cradling grain, playing an accordeon, or performing a folk dance. 
His earliest known ancestors did those things with fervor and it is doubtful 
if the modus operandi has changed much since the beginning, since Adam 
was a Russian, 

The "H" Company boys could tell you stories of the Chinese outfit of 
S. B. A. L. under the British officer, the likable Capt. Card, who later lost 
his life in the forlorn hope drive on Karpogora in March. One day he 
was approached by a Chinese soldier who begged the loan of a machine 
gun for a little while. It seems that the Chinese had gotten into argument 
with a company of Russian S. B. A. L. men as to the relative staying 
qualities of Russians and Chinese under fire. And they had agreed upon a 
machine gun duel as a fair test. The writer one night at four in the 
morning woke when his Russian sleigh stopped in a village and rubbed 
his sleepy eyes open to find himself looking up into the questioning face 
of a burly sentry of the Chinese race. And he obeyed the sentry's directions 

241 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

with alacrity. He was not taking any chances on a misunderstanding that 
might arise out of an attempted explanation in a three-cornered Russo- 
Chino-English conversation. 

Captain Odjard's men might tell stories about the redoubtable Russian 
Colonel Deliktorsky, who was in the push up the rivers in September. 
Impetuous to a fault he flung himself and his men into the offensive move- 
ment. "In twelve minutes we take Toulgas," was his simple battle order 
to the Americans. No matter to him that ammunition reserves were not 
ordered up. Sufficient to him that he showed his men the place to be battled 
for. And he was a favorite. 

On the railroad in the fall a young Bolshevik officer surrendered his men 
to the French. Next time the American officer saw him he was reporting 
in American headquarters at Pinega that he had conducted his men to safety 
and dug in. Afterwards Bolshevik assassins or spies shot him in ambush 
and succeeded only in angering him and he went into battle two days later 
with a bandage covering three wounds in his neck and scalp. "G" and "M" 
Company men will remember this fiery Mozalevski. 

Then there was the studious Capt. Akutin, a three-year veteran of a 
Russian machine gun battalion, a graduate student of science in a Russian 
university, a man of new army and political ideals in keeping with the 
principles of the Russian Revolution. His great success with the Pinega 
Valley volunteers and drafted men was due quite largely to his strength 
of character, his adherence to his principles. The people did not fear the 
restoration of the old monarchist regime even though he v/as an officer 
of the Czar's old army. American soldiers in Pinega gained a genuine 
respect and admiration for this Russian officer, Capt. Akutin, and he once 
expressed great pleasure in the fact that they exchanged salutes with him 
cordially. 



24a 



XXXII 

Felchers^ Priests And Icons 

Felcher Is Student Of Medicine— Or Pill Passer Of Army Experience 
— Sanitation And Ventilation — Priests Strange Looking To Soldiers 
— Duties And Responsibilities — Effect Of Bolshevism On Peasant's 
Religious Devotions — The Icons — Interesting Stories — Doughboys 
Buried By Russian Priests — Respect For Russian Religion. 

During the fall of 1918 when the influenza epidemic was wreaking such 
great havoc among the soldiers and natives in the Archangel Province, our 
medical corps as heretofore explained were put to almost superhuman efforts 
in combating the spread of this terrible disease. There were very few native 
doctors in the region, and it was, therefore, well nigh impossible to enlist 
outside aid. In some of the villages we received word that there were men 
called felchers who could possibly be of some assistance. We were at once 
curious to ascertain just what kind of persons these individuals were and 
upon investigation found that the Russian Company located in our sector 
had a young officer who was also a felcher and who was giving certain 
medical attention to his troops. We immediately sent for him and in answer 
to our inquiries he explained as nearly as possible just what a felcher was. 

It seems that in Russia, outside the large cities and communities, there 
is a great scarcity of regularly licensed medical practitioners, many of these 
latter upon graduation enter the army where the pay is fairly good and the 
work comparatively easy, the rest of them enter the cities where, of course, 
practice is larger and the remuneration much better than would be possible 
in a small community. These facts developed in the smaller communities 
the use of certain second-rate students of medicine or any one having a 
smattering of medical knowledge, called felchers. 

In many cases the felcher is an old soldier who has traveled around 
the world a bit ; and from his association in the army hospitals with doctors 
and students has picked up the technique of dressing wounds, setting broken 
bones and administering physic. Very often they are, of course, unable to 
properly diagnose the ailments or conditions of their patients. They, how- 
ever, are shrewd enough to follow out the customary army method of treat- 
ing patients and regardless of the disease promptly administer vile doses of 
medicine, usually a physic, knowing full well that to the average patient, 
the stronger the medicine and the more of it he gets, the better the treat- 
ment is, and a large percentage of the recoveries effected by these felcheri 
is more or less a matter of faith rather than physic or medicine. 

The regularly licensed practitioners as a rule have great contempt for 
these felchers, but the fact remains that in the small communities where 
they practice the felcher accomplishes a great amount of good, for having 
traveled considerably and devoted some time to the study of medicine he is 
at least superior in intelligence to the average peasant, and, therefore, better 
qualified to meet such emergencies as may arise. 

243 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

This lack of medical practitioners, coupled with the apathy of the peasants 
regarding sanitary precautions and their unsanitary methods of living ac- 
counts to some extent for the violence and spread of plagues, so common 
throughout Russia. 

Regarding the spread of disease and plagues through Russia caused as 
above stated by lack of sanitary conditions, a word or two further would 
not be amiss. In the province of Archangel, for example, a great majority 
of houses are entirely of log construction, built and modelled throughout by 
the owner, and perhaps some of his good neighbors. They are really a 
remarkable example of what may be done in the way of construction without 
the use of nails and of the modern improved methods of house construction. 
It is an actual fact that these simple peasants, equipped only with their short 
hand axes, with the use of which they are adepts, can cut down trees, hew 
the logs and build their homes practically without the use of any nails what- 
ever. The logs, of course, are first well seasoned before they are put into the 
house itself and when they are joined together they are practically air tight, 
but to make sure of this fact the cracks are sealed tight with moss ham- 
mered into the chinks. Next the windows of these houses are always 
double, that is, there is one window on the outside of the frame and another 
window on the inside. Needless to say, during the winter these windows 
are practically never opened. 

During the winter months the entire family — and families in this country 
are always large — eat, sleep, and live in one room of the house in which 
the huge brick home-made stove is located. In addition to the human 
beings living in the room there are often a half dozen or more chickens 
concealed beneath the stove, sometimes several sheep, and outside the door 
may be located the stable for the cattle. Nevertheless, the peasants are 
remarkably healthy, and in this region of the world epidemics are rather 
uncommon which may perhaps be explained by the fact that the peasants 
are out of doors a large part of the time and in addition thereto the air 
is very pure and healthful. Sewerage systems and such means of drainage 
are entirely unknown, even in the city of Archangel, which at the time we 
were there, contained some hundred thousand inhabitants.. The only sewer- 
age there was an open sewer that ran through the streets of the city. Small 
wonder it is under such conditions that when an epidemic does break out 
that it spreads so far and so rapidly. 

One of the most familiar characters seen in every town, large or small, 
was the Batushka. This character is usually attired in a long, black or 
gray smock and his hair reaches in long curls to his shoulders. At first 
sight to the Yankee soldiers he resembled very much the members of the 
House of David or so-called "Holy Roller" sect in this country. This myster- 
ious individual, commonly called Batushka, as we later discovered, was 
the village priest. The priest of course belonged to the Russian Orthodox 
Church and whose head in the old days was the Czar. The priests differ very 
greatly from the ministers of the gospel and priests in the English-speaking 
world. They have certain religious functions to perform in certain set 
ways, outside of which they never venture to stray. The Russian priest is 

244 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

merely expected to conform to certain observances and to perform the rites 
and ceremonies prescribed by the Church. He rarely preaches or exhorts, 
and neither has nor seeks to have a moral control over his flock. Marriage 
among the priests is not prohibited but is limited, that is to say, the priest 
is allowed to marry but once, and consequently, in choosing the wife he 
usually picks one of the strongest and healthiest women in the community. 
This selection is in all seriousness an important matter in the priest's life 
because he draws practically no salary from his position and must own a 
share of the community land, till and cultivate the same in exactly the same 
manner as the rest of the community, consequently his wife must be strong 
and healthy in order to assist him in the many details of managing his small 
holdings. In case she were such a strong and healthy person, the loss of the 
wife would be a calamity in more ways than one to the priest as is appar- 
ent by the above statements. 

While the religious beliefs and doctrines of the average peasant is only 
used by him as a practical means toward an end, yet it must be admitted 
that the Russian people are in a certain sense religious. They regularly go 
to church on Sundays and Holy Days, of which there are countless num- 
bers, cross themselves repeatedly when they pass a church or Icon, take the 
holy communion at stated seasons, rigorously abstain from animal food, not 
only on Wednesdays and Fridays but also during Lent and the other long 
fasts, make occasional pilgrimages to the holy shrines and in a word fulfill 
carefully the ceremonial observance which they suppose necessary for their 
salvation. 

Of theology in its deeper sense the peasant has no intelligent compre- 
hension. For him the ceremonial part of religion suffices and he has the most 
unbounded childlike confidence in the saving efficacy of the rites which he 
practices. 

Men of education and of great influence among the people were these 
sad-faced priests, until the Bolsheviks came to undermine their power; for 
the Bolsheviks have spared not the old Imperial government. The church 
had been a potent organization for the Czar to strengthen his sway through- 
out his far-raching dominions and every priest was an enlisted crusader of 
the Little Father. So the Bolsheviki, sweeping over the country, have seized, 
first of all, upon these priests of Romanoff, torturing them to death with 
hideous cruelty, if there be any truth in stories, and finding vindictive de- 
light in deriding sacred things and violating holy places. 

The moujik, ever susceptible to influence, has been quick to become in- 
fected with this bacillus of agnosticism, and while he still professes the faith 
and observes many of the forms as by habit, his fervor is cooling and already 
is grown luke-warm. Now on Sundays, despite all of the execrations of 
the priest, and the terrible threats of eternal damnation, he often dozes the 
Sabbath away unperturbed on the stove; and lets the women attend to the 
church going. Under Bolshevik rule Holy Russia will be Agnostic Russia; 
and it is a pity, for religious teaching was the guiding star of these poor 
people, and religious precepts, hard, gloomy and dismal though they were, 
the foundation of the best in their character. 

245 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

Icons are pictorial, usually half length representations of the Saviour or 
the Madonna or some patron saint, finished in a very archaic Byzantine style 
on a yellow or gold background, and vary in size from a square inch to 
several square feet. Very often the whole picture is covered with various 
ornaments, ofttimes with precious stones. In respect to their religious sig- 
nificance icons are of two classes, simple or miracle-working. The former 
are manufactured in enormous quantities and are to be found in every Rus- 
sian house, from the lowest peasant to the highest official. They are gen- 
erally placed high up in a corner of the living room facing the door, and 
every good Orthodox peasant on entering the door bows in the direction 
of the icon and crosses himself repeatedly. Before and after meals the 
same ceremony is always performed and on holiday or fete days a small 
taper or candle is kept burning before the icon throughout the day. 

An amusing incident is related which took place in the allied hospital in 
Shenkursk. A young medical officer had just arrived from Archangel and 
was sitting in the living room or entrance-way of the hospital directly under- 
neath one of these icons. One of the village ladies, having occasion tg call 
at the hospital, entered the front door and as usual stepped toward the center 
of the room facing the icon, bowed very low and started crossing herself. 
The young officer who was unacquainted with the Russian custom, believing 
that she was saluting him, quickly stepped forward and stretched forth his 
hand to shake hands with her while she was still in the act of crossing her- 
self. Great was his consternation when he was later informed by his inter- 
preter of the significance of this operation. 

Doughboys on the Railroad front at Obozerskaya will recall the fact 
that when the first three Americans killed in action in North Russia were 
buried, it was impossible to get one of our chaplains from Archangel to 
come to Obozerskaya to bury them. The American officer in command en- 
gaged the local Russian priest to perform the religious service. By some 
trick of fate it had happened that these first Americans who fell in action 
were of Slavic blood, so the strange funeral which the doughboys witnessed 
was not so incongruous after all. 

With the long-haired, wonderfully-robed priest came his choir and many 
villagers, who occupied one side of the square made by the soldiers standing 
there in the dusk to do last honors to their dead comrades. With chantings 
and doleful chorus the choir answered his solemn oratory and devotional 
intercessions. He swung his sacred censer pot over each body and though 
we understood no word we knew he was doing reverence to the spirit of sac- 
rifice shown by our fallen comrades. There in the darkness by the edge of 
the forest, the priest and his ceremony, the firing squad's volley, and the 
bugler's last call, all united to make that an allied funeral. The American 
soldier and the priest and his pitiful people had really begun to spin out 
threads of sympathy which were to be woven later into a fabric of friendli- 
ness. The doughboy always respected the honest peasant's religious cus- 
toms. 



246 



XXXIII 

Bolshevism 

Why Chapter Is Written — Venerable Kropotkin's Message Direct From 
Central Russia — Official Report Of United States Department Of 
State — Conclusions Of Study Prepared For National Chamber Of 
Commerce — Authoritative Comment By Men Who Are In Position 
To Know — A Cartoon And Comment Which Speak For Veterans. 

The writers have an idea that the veterans of the North Russian Expedition 
would like a short, up-to-date chapter on Bolshevism. We used to wonder 
why it was that John Bolo was so willing to fight us and the White Guards. 
We would not wish to emphasize the word willing for we remember the 
fact that many a time when he was beaten back from our defenses we 
knew by the sound that he was being welcomed back to his camp by machine 
guns. And the prisoners and wounded whom we captured were not always 
enthusiastic about the Bolshevism under whose banner they fought. To be 
fair, however, we must remark that we captured some men and officers 
who were sure enough believers in their cause. 

And the general reader will probably like a chapter presented by men 
who were over in that civil war-torn north country and who might be 
expected to gather the very best materials available on the subject of 
Bolshevism. And what we have gathered we present with not much com- 
ment except that we ourselves are trying to keep a tolerant but wary eye 
upon those who profess to believe in Bolshevism. We say candidly that we 
think Bolshevism is a failure. But we do not condemn everyone else who 
differs with us. Let there be fair play and justice to all, freedom of 
thought and speech, with decent respect for the rights of all. 

The first article is adapted from an article in The New York Times of 
recent date, according to which Margaret Bondfield, a member of the British 
Labor Delegation which recently visited Russia, went to see Peter Kropotkin, 
the celebrated Russian economist and anarchist, at his home at Dimitroflf, 
near Moscow. The old man gave her a message to the workers of Great 
Britain and the western world : 

"In the first place, the workers of the civilized world and their friends 
among other classes should persuade their governments to give up com- 
pletely the policy of armed intervention in the affairs of Russia, whether that 
intervention is open or disguised, military, or under the form of sub- 
ventions by different nations. 

"Russia is passing through a revolution of the same significance and 
of equal importance that England passed through in 1639-1648 and France 
in 1789-1794. The nations of today should refuse to play the shameful role 
to which England, Prussia, Austria* and Russia sank during the French 
Revolution. 

"Moreover, it is necessary to consider that the Russian Revolution — 
which seeks to erect a society in which the full production of the combined 

247 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

efforts of labor, technical skill and scientific knowledge shall go to the 
community itself — is not a mere accident in the struggle of parties. The 
revolution has been in preparation for nearly a century by Socialist and 
Communist propaganda, since the times of Robert Owen, Saint-Simon, and 
Fourier. And although the attempt to introduce the new society by the 
dictatorship of a party apparently seems condemned to defeat, it must be 
admitted that the revolution has already introduced into our life new 
conceptions of the rights of labor, its true position in society, and the duties 
of each citizen. 

Not only the workers, but all progressive elements in the civilized nations 
should bring to an end the support so far given to the adversaries of the 
revolution. This does not mean that there is nothing to oppose in the 
methods of the Bolshevist government. Far from it! But all armed 
intervention by a foreign power necessarily results in an increase of the 
dictatorial tendencies of the rulers and paralyzes the efforts of those 
Russians who are ready to aid Russia, independent of her government, in 
the restoration of her life. 

"The evils inherent in the party dictatorship have grown because of the 
war conditions in which this party has maintained itself. The state of war 
has been the pretext for increasing the dictatorial methods of the party 
as well as the reason for the tendency to centralize each detail of life in the 
hands of the government, which has resulted in the cessation of many 
branches of the nation's usual activities. The natural evils of state Commun- 
ism have been multiplied tenfold under the pretext that the distress of our 
existence is due to the intervention of foreigners. 

"It is my firm opinion that if the military intervention of the Allies is 
continued it will certainly develop in Russia a bitter sentiment with respect 
to the western nations, a sentiment that will be utilized some day in future 
conflicts. This bitter feeling is already growing. 

"So far as our present economic and political situation is concerned, the 
Russian revolution, being the continuation of the two great revolutions in 
England and France, undertakes to progress beyond the point where France 
stopped when she perceived that acutal equality consists in economic equality. 

"Unfortunately, this attempt has been made in Russia under the strongly 
centralized dictatorship of a party, the Maximalist Social Democrats. The 
Baboeuf conspiracy, extremely centralized and jacobinistic, tried to apply a 
similar policy. I am compelled frankly to admit that, in my opinion, this 
attempt to construct a communist republic with a strongly centralized state 
communism as its base, under the iron law of the dicatorship of a party, 
is bound to end in a fiasco. We are learning in Russia how communism 
should not be introduced, even by a people weary of the ancient regime and 
making no active resistance to the experimental projects of the new rulers. 

"The Soviet idea — that is to say, councils of workers and peasants, first 
developed during the revolutionary uprisings of 1905 and definitely realized 
during the revolution of February, 1917 — the idea of these councils control- 
ling the economic and political life of the country, is a great conception. 
Especially so because it necessarily implies that the councils should be com- 

248 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVlKl 

posed of all those who take a real part in the production of national wealth 
by their own personal efforts. 

"But as long as a country is governed by the dictatorship of a party, the 
workers' and peasants' councils evidently lose all significance. They are 
reduced to the passive role formerly performed by the states generals and 
the parliaments when they were convened by the king and had to combat 
an all-powerful royal council. 

"A labor council ceases to be a free council when there is no liberty of 
the press in the country, and we have been in this situation for nearly two 
years — under the pretext that we are in a state of war. But that is not all. 
The workers' and peasants' councils lose all their significance unless the 
elections are preceded by a free electoral campaign and when the elections 
are conducted under the pressure of the dictatorship of a party. Naturally, 
the stock excuse is that the dictatorship is inevitable as a method to fight 
the ancient regime. But such a dictatorship evidently becomes a barrier 
from the moment when the revolution undertakes the construction of a new 
society on a new economic basis. The dictatorship condemns the new struc- 
ture to death. 

"The methods resorted to in overthrowing governments already tot- 
tering are well known to history, ancient and modern. But when it is neces- 
sary to create new forms of life — especially new forms of production and 
exchange — without examples to follow, when everything must be constructed 
from the ground up, when a government that undertakes to supply even 
lamp chimneys to every inhabitant demonstrates that it is absolutely unable 
to perform this function with all its employes, however limitless their num- 
ber may be, when this condition is reached such a government becomes a 
nuisance. It develops a bureaucracy so formidable that the French bureau- 
cratic system, which imposes the intervention of 40 functionaries to sell a 
tree blown across a national road by a storm, becomes a bagatelle in com- 
parison. This is what you, the workers in the occidental countries, should 
and must avoid by all possible means since you have at heart the success 
of a social reconstruction. Send your delegates here to see how a social 
1 evolution works in actual life. 

"The prodigious amount of constructive labor necessary under a social 
revolution cannot be accomplished by a central government, even though it 
may be guided by something more substantial than a collection of Socialist 
and anarchistic manuals. It requires all the brain power available and the 
voluntary collaboration of specialized and local forces, which alone can 
attack with success the diversity of the economic problems in their local 
aspects. To reject this collaboration and to rely on the genius of a party 
dictatorship is to destroy the independent nucleus, such as the trade unions 
and the local co-operative societies by changing them into party bureaucratic 
organs, as is actually the case at present. It is the method not to accom- 
plish the revolution. It is the method to make the realization of the revolu- 
tion impossible. And this is the reason why I consider it my duty to warn 
you against adopting such methods. 

249 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

It must be evident to the reader that Russia is at present being ruled by 
a system of pyramided majorities, many of which are doubtful popular 
majorities. In the name of the Red Party Lenin and Trotsky rule. They 
themselves admit it. The dictatorship of the proletariat, and similar terms 
are used by them in referring to their highly centralized control. We Amer- 
icans are in the habit of overturning state and national administrations when 
we think one party has ruled long enough. Even a popular war president at 
the pinnacle of his power found the American people resenting, so it has 
been positively affirmed, his plea for the return of his party to continued 
control in 1918. Can we as a self-governing people look with anything but 
wonder at the occasional American who fails to see that the perpetual rule 
of one party year after year which we as Americans have always doubted 
the wisdom of, is the very thing that Lenin and Trotsky have fastened upon 
Russia. Russia, that wanted to be freed from the Romanoff rule and its 
bureaucratic system of fraud, waste, and cruelty, today groans under a system 
of despotism which is just as, if not more, wasteful, fraudulent and cruel. 

There are sincere people who might think that because the Bolsheviks 
have kept themselves in power, that they must be right. We can not agree 
with the reasoning. Even if we knew nothing about the bayonets and ma- 
chine guns and firing squads and prisons, we would not agree to the reason- 
ing that the Bolshevik government is right just because it is in power. We 
prefer the reasoning of the greatest man whom America has produced, 
Abraham Lincoln, whose words, which we quote, seem to us to exactly fit 
the present Russian situation : 

"A majority held in restraint by constitutional checks and limita- 
tions, and always changing easily with deliberate changes of popular 
opinions and sentiments, is the only free sovereign of a free people. 
Whoever rejects it does of necessity fly to anarchy or to depotism. Unan- 
imity is impossible. The rule of a minority, as a permanent arrange- 
ment, is wholly inadmissible; so that, rejecting the majority principle, 
anarchy or despotism in some form is all that is left." — Abraham Lincoln. 

The Chamber of Commerce of the United States has, through Frederic 
J. Haskin, Washington, D. C, distributed an admirable pamphlet, temperate 
and judicial, which compares the Soviet system with the American constitu- 
tional system. This pamphlet written by Hon. Burton L. French, of Idaho, 
coilcludes his discussion as follows : 

"In a government that has been heralded so widely as being the most 
profound experiment in democracy that has ever been undertaken, we would 
naturally expect that the franchise would be along lines that would recognize 
all mankind embraced within the citizenship of the nation as standing upon 
an equal footing. The United States has for many years adhered to that 
principle. It was that principle largely for which our fathers died when 
they established our government, and yet that principle seems foreign to 
the way of thinking of Lenin and Trotsky as they shaped the Russian 
constitution. 



250 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 



PARALLEL 8— THOSE WHO MAY VOTE 

United States 
All men (and women in many states, 
and soon in all) who are citizens 
and over 21 years of age, except- 
ing those disfranchised on account 
of illiteracy, mental ailment or 
criminal record. 



Russia 

1. The franchise extends to all over 
18 years of age who have acquired 
the means of living through 
manual labor, and also persons 
engaged in housekeeping for the 
former. 

2. Soldiers of the army and navy. 

3. The former two classes when in- 
capacitated. 
"Bear in mind the liberal franchise with which the American Nation 

meets her citizens and let me ask you to contemplate the franchise that 
is handed out to the people of Russia who arq 18 years of age or over who 
have acquired the means of living through labor that is productive and useful 
to society and persons engaged in housekeeping in behalf of the former 
are entitled to the franchise. Who else? The soldiers of the army and 
navy. Who else? Any of the former two classes who have become in- 
capacitated. 

"Now turn to the next sections of the Russian constitution and see who 
are disfranchised. 

"The merchant is disfranchised; ministers of all denominations are dis- 
franchised; and then, while condemning the Czar for tyranny, the soviet 
constitution solemnly declares that those who were in the employ of the 
Czar or had been members of the families of those who had ruled in Russia 
for many generations shall be denied suffrage. 

"Persons who have income from capital or from property that is theirs 
by reason of years of frugality, industry, and thrift are penalized by being 
denied the right to vote. They are placed in the class with criminals, while 
the profligate, the tramp who works enough to obtain the means by which 
he can hold body and soul together, is able to qualify under the constitution 
of Russia and is entitled to a vote. Under that system in the United States 
the loyal men and women who bought Liberty Bonds, in their country's 
peril would be disfranchised while the slacker would have the right of 
suffrage. 

"Persons who employ hired labor in order to obtain from it an increase 
in profits may not vote or hold office. Under that system the manufacturer 
who furnishes employment for a thousand men would be denied the ballot, 
while those in his employ could freely exercise the right of franchise. 
Under that system the farmer who hires a crew of men to help him harvest 
his crop is denied the franchise. Under that system the dairyman who 
hires a boy to milk his cows or to deliver milk is denied the franchise. 

"The constitution of Russia adopts the declaration of rights as part of 
the organic act to the extent that changes have not been made by the con- 
stitution. Examine them — the constitution and the declaration of rights — 
we find other most astounding doctrines in the soviet fundamental law. I 
shall not discuss but merely mention a few of them. They do not pertain 
so much to the structure of government as they do to the economic and 
social conditions surrounding the people under the soviet system: 

S51 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

"First. Private ownership of land is abolished. (No compensation, open 
or secret, is paid to the former owner.) 

"Second. Civil marriage alone is legal. By act of the All-Russian 
Congress of Soviets a marriage may be accomplished by the contracting 
parties declaring the fact orally, or by writing to the department of registry 
of marriage. Divorce is granted by petition of both or either party upon 
proof alone that divorce is desired. 

"Third. The teaching of religious doctrines is forbidden in private 
schools, as well as in schools that are public. 

"Fourth. No church or religious society has the right to own property. 
(The soviet leaders boldly proclaim the home and the church as the enemies 
of their system, and from the foregoing it would seem that they are trying 
to destroy them.) 

"Fifth. Under the general authority granted to the Soviets by the con- 
stitution inheritance of property by law or will has been abolished. 

"These amazing features of the constitution and laws enacted under the 
constitution speak more eloquently than any words that could be used to 
amplify them in portraying the hideousness of a system of government 
that, if permitted to continue, must inevitably crush out the home in large 
part by the flippancy with which marriage and divorce are regarded, by 
the refusal of permitting the land to be held in private ownership, and 
by refusing the parent the right at death to pass on to his wife or to his 
children the fruits of years of toil. 

"What, then, is my arraignment of sovietism according to the soviet 
constitution? 

"1. The people have no direct vote or voice in government, except the 
farmers in their local rural Soviets and the city dwellers in their urban 
Soviets. 

"2. The rural, county, provincial, regional, and All-Russian Soviets are 
elected indirectly, and the people have no direct vote in the election. 

"3. The people have no voice in the election of executive officers of the 
highest or lowest degrees. 

"4. There is no mention of independent judicial officers in the constitu- 
tion. 

"5. The people are very largely disfranchised. 

"6. The farmer of Russia is discriminated against. 

"7. The system raises class against class ; the voters vote by trade and 
craft groups instead of on the basis of thought units. 

"8. The system strikes a blow at the church and "the home. 

"9. The system is pyramidal and means highly centralized and autocratic 
power. 

"The soviet system of government can not be defended. It is against 
the interests of the very men for whom it is supposed to have been estab- 
lished — the laboring man. Ha is the man most of all who must suffer 
under any kind of government or system that is wrong. He is the man 
who would be out of bread within the shortest time. He is the man whose 
family would be destitute of clothing in the shortest time. He is the man 
whose family will suffer through disease, famine, and pestilence in the 
shortest time. 

253 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

"As it is against the best interest of the laboring man, so it is against 
the best interest of all the people, and, as a matter of fact, the overwhelming 
mass of people of this country and all countries is made up of laboring 
people, 

"Finally, the soviet government, as foreshadowed in its constitution, is 
obviously unjust, unfair and discriminatory. This fact will appear at once 
to any mind trained to the American manner of thought, which takes the 
trouble to investigate sovietism, and whatever tendency there may be to 
approve will disappear with better understanding." 

"Men in high places who have had opportunity to get the facts," says 
Mr. Burton, "give their impressions of the experiment : 

"WooDROW Wilson, President of the United States. — 'There is a closer 
monopoly of power in Moscow and Petrograd than there ever was in 
Berlin.' 

"Samuel Gompers, President of the American Federation of Labor. — 
'Bolshevism is as great an attempt to disrupt the trade unions as it is to 
overturn the government of the United States. It means the decadence 
or perversion of the civilization of our time. To me, the story of the 
desperate Samson who pulled the temple down on his head is an example 
of what is meant by bolshevism.' 

"Morris Hillquit, International Secretary of the Socialist Party. — 'The 
Socialists of the United States would have no hesitancy whatsoever in join- 
ing forces with the rest of their countrymen to repel the Bolsheviki who 
would try to invade our country and force a form of government upon our 
people which our people were not ready for, and did not desire.' 

"Herbert Hoover, Former United States Food Administrator. — 'The 
United States has been for one hundred and fifty years steadily developing 
a social philosophy of its own. This philosophy has stood this test in the 
fire of common sense. We have a willingness to abide by the will of the 
majority. For all I know it may be necessary to have revolutions in some 
places in Europe in order to bring about these things, but it does not fol- 
low that such philosophies have any place with us.' 

"William Howard Taft, Former President of the United States. — 'I do 
not fear bolshevism in this country. 1 do not mean that in congested centers 
foreigners and agitators will not have influence. But Americans as a whole 
have a deep love for America. It is a vital love that the sensational appeals 
of bolshevists and agitators cannot weaken'." 

A yellowed and tattered cartoon that hung on a Company bulletin board 
at 466 when the snow was slipping away. 

"America Looks Mighty Good After You've Seen Europe" is the title. 

On the right stands the Bolshevik orator on a soap box. His satchel 
bursting out with propaganda and pamphlets on Bolshevism from Europe. 
In his hand he holds a pamphlet that has a message for the returning dough- 
boys. The agitator's hair and whiskers bristle with hatred and envy. His 
yellow teeth look hideous between his snarling lips. And he points a long 
skinny finger for the doughboy to see his message, which is, "Down with 
America, it's all Wrong." So much for the man who came from Europe 
to wreck America. 

253 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

Now look at the Man Who Went to Europe to Save America and is now 
back on the west side of the Statue of Liberty. Does he look interested in 
Bolshevism or downhearted over America? No. In his figure a manful 
contrast to the scraggly agitator. In his face no hate, no malice. He does 
not even hate the self-deluded agitator. 

His clean-brushed teeth are exposed by a good-humored smile of assur- 
ance and confidence. He does not extend a fist but he waves off the fool 
Bolshevik orator with a good-natured but nevertheless final answer. And 
here it is: "Go on — Take That Stuff Back to Where You Got it— I Wouldn't 
Trade a Log Hut on a Szvatnp in America for the Whole of Europe!" 

We are thinking that the cartoon just about says it for all returned 
soldiers from North Russia. We want nothing to do with the Bolo agitator 
in this country who would make another Russia of the United States. We 
let them blow off steam, are patient with their vagaries, are willing to give 
every man a fair hearing if he has a grievance, but we don't fall for their 
wild ideas about tearing things up by the roots. 

AMERICA LOOKS MIGHTY GOOD AFTER YOU'VE SEEN EUROPE ' 




— COLUMBUS EVENING DISPATCH 



254 



XXXIV 

Y. M. C. A. AND Y. W. C. A. WITH Troops 

Justice Where Justice Is Due — Summary Of Work Of "Y" Men — "Y" 
Women And Hostess House — Seen Near Front — Devoted Women 
Stay In Russia When We Leave — Christian Associations Point 
Way To Help Russia. 

The editors have felt that "justice where justice is due" demands a few 
pages in this volume about the service of our Y. M. C. A. with us in North 
Russia. We know that there is a great deal of bitterness against the "Y." 
Much of it was engendered by the few selfish and crooked and cowardly 
men who crept into the "Y" service, and the really great service of the 
Y. M. C. A. is badly discounted and its war record sadly sullied. We know 
that here and there in North Russia a "Y" man failed to "measure up" 
but we know that on the whole our Y. M. C. A. in North Russia with us, 
did great service. 

To get a fair and succinct story, we wrote to Mr. Crawford Wheeler, 
whose statement follows. He was the Chief Secretary in the North Russia 
area. The first paragraph is really a letter of transmissal, but we approve 
its sentiment and commend its manly straightforwardness to our comrades 
and the general reader: 

"This is written purely from memory. I haven't a scrap of material at 
hand and I have hurried in order that you might have the stuff promptly. 
Please indicate, in case you use this material, that it is not based on rec- 
ords, — for I cannot vouch for all the figures. However, in the main, the 
outline is right. I wish the "Y" might have a really good chapter in your 
book, for I always have felt, with many of the other boys in our service, 
that we are condemned back here for the sins of others. If the "Y" in North 
Russia was not a fairly effective organization which went right to the front 
and stayed there, then a lot of officers and men in the 339th poured slush in 
my ears. Were it not for the rather unfortunate place which a "Y" man 
occupies back here, none of us would seek even an iota of praise, for in 
comparison with the rest of you, we deserve none; but I'm sure you under- 
stand the circumstances which impel me to insert the foregoing plea, 'Justice 
where justice is due.' That's all. 

"The Y. M. C. A. shared the lot of the American North Russian Expedi- 
tionary Force as an isolated fighting command from the day it landed 
until the last soldier left Archangel. It shared in the successes and the 
failures of the expedition. It contributed something now and then to the 
welfare and comfort and even to the lives of the American and Allied 
troops both at the front and in the base camps. It made a record which only 
the testimony of those who were part of the expedition is qualified to esti- 
mate. 

255 J 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

"When the American soldiers of the 339th Infantry landed in Archangel 
on September 5th, 1918, they found a "Y" in town ahead of them. The day 
after the port was captured by allied forces early in August, Allen Craig 
of the American Y. M. C. A. had secured a spacious building in the heart 
of the city for use as a "Y" hut. With very little equipment he managed to 
set up a cocoa and biscuit stand and a reading and writing room and the 
hall of the building was opened for band concerts and athletic nights. It 
really was little more than a barn until the arrival of secretaries and supplies 
in October made improvements possible. 

"A party of ten secretaries, who had spent the previous year in Central 
Russia under the Bolshevik regime, landed in the first week of October, 
having come around from Sweden and Norway. Two weeks later another 
ten secretaries arrived from the same starting point. These men formed the 
nucleus of the "Y" personnel which was to serve the American troops through 
the winter and spring. They were sent to points at the front immediately 
after their arrival, and more than a few doughboys will remember the first 
trip of the big railroad car to the front south of Obozerskaya, with Frank 
Olmstead in charge. 

"The British Y. M. C. A. sent a party of twenty-five secretaries to Arch- 
angel early in the fall and considerations of practical policy made it advis- 
able to combine operations under the title of the Allied Y. M. C. A. To the 
credit of the British secretaries, it must be said that they turned over all their 
supplies to the American management. These supplies constituted practically 
all the stock of biscuit and canteen products used until Christmas time, and 
British secretaries took their places under the direction of the American 
headquarters. 

"The "Y" was fortunate to have secured several trucks and Ford cars 
in a shipment before the Allied landing, and they became part of the expedi- 
tionary transport system at once. The Supply Company of the 339th used 
one truck, and the British transport staff borrowed the other one. Major 
Ely, Quartermaster of the American forces, got one of the Fords, and an- 
other one went to the American Red Cross. 

"By the middle of November the "Y" had secretaries on the river fronts 
near Seletskoe and Beresnik at the railroad front and with the Pinega 
detachment. Supplies dribbled through to them in pitifully small amounts, 
usually half of the stuff stolen before it reached the front. The British 
N. A. B. C. sold considerable quantities of biscuit artd cigarettes to the "Y," 
both at the front bases and from the Archangel depot. On the railroad 
front a really respectable service was maintained, because transport was 
not so difficult. One secretary made the trip around the blockhouses and 
outposts daily with a couple of packsacks filled with gum, candy and cigar- 
ettes, which were distributed as generously as the small capacity of the sacks 
permitted. Two cars equipped with tables for reading and writing and with 
a big cocoa urn were stationed at Verst 455, where the headquarters train 
and reserve units stood. These cars were moved to points north and south 
on the line twice weekly for small detachments to get their ration of biscuit 
and sweets, small as it was. 

256 




Christmas Dinner, Convalescent Hospital 



RED CROSS PHOTO 




U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO 



'Come and Get It" at Verst lt55 










Doughboys Drubbed Sailors 





mL'"."j"i'«[fc • ( 


*'-'''^^^mm 


Hi 


imk 


«jwme{ ^Mt '^" y • 


1 


Li.r 





I'a/ifc a«(Z Scot Guarding Prisoners 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

"Another row of cars was maintained at Oborerskaya, where the first 
outpost entertainment hut was opened about Christmas time with a program 
of moving pictures, athletic stunts and feeds. Shipments were made from 
this base to the secretaries at Seletskoe, who did their best to make the win- 
ter less monotonous and miserable for the second battalion men stationed 
on that front. The "Y" opened a hut in Pinega in early November, and by the 
middle of December had established a point for the "H" Company men west 
of Emtsa on the Onega River line. 

"Meanwhile, the Central "Y" hut at Archangel had been remodelled and 
fully equipped for handling large crowds, and it served several hundred 
allied soldiers daily. Whenever a company of Americans came in from 
the front, a special night was arranged for them to have a program in the 
theatre hall, with movies, songs, stunts and eats on the bill. A series of 
basketball games was carried on between the base unit companies and other 
commands which were in Archangel for a week or more awaiting transfer 
to another point. Huts were opened in the Smolny base camp at Solombola, 
both of them barely large enough to afford room for a cocoa and biscuit 
counter, a piano, and a reading room. Shortly after Christmas another "Y" 
station was put in commission across the river at the Preestin railroad 
terminal, where detachments and individuals often endured a long wait in 
the cold or arrived chilled to the bone from a trip on the heatless cars. 

"About Christmas time twenty-five more secretaries arrived from the 
American Y. M. C. A. headquarters in England, and with this addition to 
personnel, it was possible to make headquarters something more than a 
table and a telephone. A fairly efficieint supply and office staff was built 
up and with the landing of two or three belated cargoes, "Y" folk began to 
see a rosier period ahead. But transport difficulties made it almost impos- 
sible to get stuff moved to the front, where the men needed it most. 'When 
there are neither guns nor ammunition enough,' said the British headquarters, 
'how can we afford to take sleds for sending up biscuits and cigarettes?' 

"Nevertheless, by hook or crook, several convoys were pushed through 
to Bereznik, each time reviving the hopes of the men in the outposts, who 
thought at last they might get some regular service. Tom Cotton and "Husky" 
Merrill, two football stars from Dartmouth, were in charge of the "Y" points 
on the Dvina advanced front, and whatever success the "Y" attained in that 
vicinity belongs primarily to their credit. They ended an eventful career in 
the spring of 1&19 by getting captured when the Bolsheviks and Russian 
mutineers staged a coup d'etat at Toulgas and captured the village. Their 
escape was more a matter of luck than of planning. They paddled down 
the river in a boat. In their hasty exit from the village, they left behind all 
their personal belongings. 

"At Shenkursk the "Y" hut and stock also fell to the Bolos, but the sec- 
retaries got out with the troops. The column which made the terrible 
retreat from Shenkursk found the "Y" waiting for it at Shegovari, with hot 
cocoa and biscuit. Despite the congested transport, the service on this line 
was kept up all through the winter and spring, "Dad" Albertson, "Ken" 
Hollinshead and Brackett Lewis making themselves mighty effective in their 

257 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

service to the men on this sector. Albertson has written a book, "Fighting 
Without a War" which embodies his experiences and observations with the 
doughboys at the front. 

"One of the best pieces of service performed by the "Y" during the whole 
campaign was carried on at the time of the fierce Bolshevik drive for Obozer- 
skaya from the west in February and March. This drive cost the "Y" two 
of its best secretaries, but service was maintained without a break from the 
first day until the end when the Bolos retreated. Merle Arnold was in 
the village running a "Y" post when the attack occurred and was captured 
along with six American soldiers. Bryant Ryall, who ran the "Y" tent in 
the woods at Verst 18, next fell a victim to the Bolos, while on the way to 
Obozerskaya for more supplies. Olmstead, who came from 455 to help in 
this desperate place, remained, and as a result of his work at this front, 
received the French Croix de Guerre and the Russian St. George Cross. 

"Other decorations were awarded to Ernest Rand on the Pinega sector 
and to "Dad" Albertson on the Dvina front, both of them receiving the St. 
George Cross. The British military medal was to have been given Albertson, 
but technicalities made it impossible. Several other secretaries were mentioned 
in despatches by the American and British commands, all of them for serv- 
ice at the fighting front. It was the policy of the "Y" from the start to send 
the best men to the front, rush the best supplies to the front, give the men 
from the front the best service while at the base camps, and do it without 
thought of payment. It is a fact that the Archangel 'show' cost the "Y" more 
per capita served than any other piece of front service rendered overseas. 
The heavy cost was accentuated by the immense loss to supplies in the sup- 
ply ships, warehouses and cars or convoys, from theft and breakage and 
freezing. The totals of the business done by the "Y" up in the Russian 
Arctic area are astounding, when the difficulties of transport are considered. 
More than $1,000,000 worth of supplies were received and distributed before 
the American troops left Archangel. This included twenty-five motion pic- 
ture outfits, every one of which was in use by late spring, a million and a 
half feet of film, fairly large shipments of athletic goods, baseball equipment 
and phonographs, and thousands of books and magazines, which filled a 
most important part in the program. Until early spring the "Y" bought most 
of its canteen supplies from the British N. A. C. B., through a credit estab- 
lished in London. These stocks were sold to the "Y" virtually at the British 
retail prices and were resold at the same figures, with a resulting loss to the 
"Y," as the loss and damage mounted up to forty per cent at times. In May, 
several shipments of American canteen stocks arrived at Archangel, which 
enabled the secretaries to cut loose the strings on 'ration plan^' before the 
troops started home. 

"A hut was opened at the embarkation point, Economia, in the early 
spring, and troops quartered there had a complete red triangle service ready 
for them when sailing time arrived. A secretary or two went with each 
transport, equipped with a small stock of sweets and cigarettes to distribute 
on the voyage. Most of the American secretaries did not leave, however, 
until after the troops departed. Some of them remained until the closing 

258 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

act of the show in August. Two more were captured when the Bolos 
staged their mutiny at Onega. All these men eventually were released from 
captivity in Moscow and reached America safely. 

"The Y. M. C A. received hearty co-operation from the American Red 
Cross, from the American Embassy and from the American headquarters 
units. Sugar and cocoa were turned over frequently by the Red Cross when 
the "Y" ran completely out of stocks and an unstinted use of Red Cross 
facilities was open at all times to the "Y" men. The embassy and consulate 
transmitted the "Y" cables through their offices to England and America and 
co-operated with urgent pleas for aid at times when such pleas were essential 
to the adoption of policies to better the "Y" service. The headquarters of 
the 339th Infantry and the 310th Engineers responded to every reasonable 
request made by the "Y" for assignments of helpers, huts or other facilities 
in the different areas where work was carried on. The naval command 
showed special courtesies in forwarding supplies on cruisers and despatch 
boats from England and Murmansk and in permitting the "Y" men to 
travel on their ships. 

"Altogether more than sixty American secretaries took part in the North 
Russian show. About eight or ten of them, however, were on the Murmansk 
line, and were said by the American command to have done good work 
with the engineers and sailors in that area. Whatever record the American 
"Y" made in North Russia, it can in truth be said of the secretarial force 
that with few exceptions they gave the best that was in them and they never 
felt satisfied with their work. The service which Olmstead and Cotton and 
Arnold and Albertson and Beekman and a dozen others rendered, ranks with 
the best work done by the Y. M. C. A. men in any part of the world. Cor- 
respondents from the front in France and members of the American com- 
mand who arrived late in the day, expressed their surprise and gratification 
at the spirit which animated the "Y'' workers up in the Russian Arctic region. 
But the best test is the record which lives in the hearts of American soldiers, 
and on their fairminded testimony the "Y" men wish to secure their verdict 
for whatever they deserve for their service in North Russia with the Amer- 
ican soldiers fighting the Bolsheviki," 

TO OUR Y. W. C. A. AMERICAN GIRLS 

In that old school reader of ours we used to read with wet eyes and tight 
throat the story of the soldier who lay dying at Bingen on the Rhine and 
told his buddie to tell his sister to be kind to all the comrades. How he 
yearned for the touch of his mother's or sister's hand in that last hour, how 
the voice of woman and her liquid eye of love could soothe his dying 
moments. And the veterans of the World War now understand that poetic 
sentiment better than they did when as barefooted boys they tried to conceal 
their emotions behind the covers of the book, for in the unlovely grime and 
grind of war the soldier came to long for the sight of his own women kind. 
They will now miss no opportunity to sing the praises of their war time 
friends, the Salvation Army Lassies and the girls of the Y. W. C. A. 

259 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

In North Russia we were out of luck in the lack of Salvation Army Las- 
sies enough to reach around to our front, but in that isolated war area we 
were fortunate to receive several representatives of the American Y, W. C. 
A. Some were girls who had already been in Russia for several years in 
the regular mission work among the Russian people, and two of them we 
hasten to add right here, were brave enough to stay behind when we cut 
loose from the country. Miss Dunham and Miss Taylor were to turn back 
into the interior of the country and seek to help the pitiful people of Russia. 
We take our hats off to them. 

What doughboy will forget the first sight he caught of an American "Y" 
girl in North Russia? He gave her his eyes and ears and his heart all in a 
minute. Was he in the hospital? Her smile was a memory for days after- 
ward. If a convalescent who could dance, the touch of her arm and hand 
and the happy swing of the steps swayed him into fortgetfulness of the 
pain of his wounds. If he were off outpost duty on a sector near the front 
line and seeking sweets at a Y. M. C. A. his sweets were doubled in value 
to him as he took them from the hand of the "Y" girl behind the counter. 
Or at church service in Archangel her voice added a heavenly note to the 
hymn. In the Hostess House, he watched her pass among the men showering 
graciousness and pleasantries upon the whole lonesome lot of doughboys. 
One of the boys wrote a little poem for The American Sentinel which 
may be introduced here in prose garb a la Walt Mason. 

"There's a place in old Archangel, That we never will forget, And 
of all the cozy places, It's the soldier's one best bet. It's the place where 
lonely Sammies Hit the trail for on the run, There they serve you cake 
and cofTee, 'Till the cake and coffee's done. And they know that after 
eating, There's another pleasure yet, — So to show how they are thought- 
ful. They include a cigarette. There's a place back in the corner. Where 
you get your clothing checked, And the place is yours, They tell you, — 
well — Or words to that effect. There are magazines a-plenty, From 
the good old U. S. A. There's a cheery home-like welcome for you any 
time of day. Will we, can we e'er forget them, In the future golden 
years, And the kindness that was rendered. By these Lady Volunteers? 
Just as soon as work is finished. Don't you brush your hair and blouse, 
And go double-double timing, To the cordial Hostess House?" 

One of the pretty weddings in Archangel that winter was that celebrated 
by the boys when Miss Childs became home-maker for Bryant Ryal, the "Y" 
man who was later taken prisoner by the Bolsheviki. She was within twelve 
miles of him the day he was captured. Doughboys were quick to offer her 
comforting assurances that he would be treated well because American "Y" 
men had done so much in Russia for the Russian soldiers before the Bol- 
shevik debacle. And when they heard that he was actually on his way to 
Moscow with fair chance of liberation, they crowded the taplooska Ryal 
home and made it shine radiantly with their congratulations. 

But it was not the institutional service such as the Hostess House or the 
Huts or the box car canteen, such as it was, which endeared the "Y" girls 
to the doughboys as a lot. It was the genuine womanly friendliness of those 
girls. 

260 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

The writer will never forget the scene at Archangel when the American 
soldiers left for Economia where the ship was to take them to America. 
Genuine were the affectionate farewells of the people — men, women and 
children ; and genuine were the responses of the soldiers to those pitiable peo- 
ple. Our Miss Dickerson, of the Y. W. C. A. Hostess House, was surrounded 
by a tearfu? group of Russian High School girls who had been receiving 
instruction in health, sanitation and other social betterments and catching 
the American Young Women's Christian Association vision of usefulness to 
the sick, ignorant and unhappy ones of the community. Around her they 
gathered, a beautiful picture of feminine grief in its sweet purity of girlish 
tears, and at the same time a beautiful picture of promising hope for the 
future of Russia when all of that long-suffering people may be reached by 
our tactful Christian women. 

In this connection now I think of the conversation with our Miss Tay- 
lor the last Sunday we were in Economia. She and Miss Dunham were 
staying on in Archangel hoping to get permission to go into the interior* of 
the country again. And it is reported that they did. She said to me: 
"Wherever you can, back home among Christian people, tell them that these 
poor people here in Russia have had their religious life so torn up by this 
strife that now they long for teachers to come and help them to regain a 
religious expression." 

A prominent worker among the College Y. M. C. A.'s in America, "Ken" 
Hollinshead, who was a "Y" secretary far up on the Dvina River in the 
long, cold, desperate winter, also caught the vision of the needs of the Rus- 
sian people who had been Rasputinized and Leninized out of the faith of 
their fathers and were pitifully like sheep without a shepherd. He/ remark- 
ed to the writer that when the Bolshevist nightmare is over in Russia, he 
would like to go back over there and help them to revive what was vital 
and essential in their old faith and to improve it by showing them the Amer- 
ican way of combining cleanliness with godliness, education with creed- 
holding, work with piety. 

Can the Russians be educated? The soldiers know that many a veteran 
comrade of theirs in the war was an Americanized citizen. He had in a 
very few years in America gained a fine education. The general reader of 
this page may look about him and discover examples for himself. Last win- 
ter in a little church in Michigan the writer found the people subscribing to 
the support of a citizen of the city who, a Russian by birth, came to this 
country to find work and opportunity. He was drawn into the so-called mis- 
sion church in the foreign settlement of the city, learned to speak and read 
English, caught a desire for education, is well-educated and now with his 
American bride goes to Russia on a Christian mission, to labor for the im- 
provement of his own nation. He is to be supported by that little congre- 
gation of American people who have a vision of the kind of help Russia 
needs from our people. 

Another story may be told. When the writer saw her first in Russia, 
she was the centre of interest on the little community entertainment hall 
dance floor. She had the manner of a lady trying to make everyone at ease. 

261 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

American soldiers and Russian soldiers and civil populace had gathered at 
the hall for a long program — a Russian drama, soldier stunts, a raffle, a 
dance which consisted of simple ballet and folk dances. The proceeds of 
the entertainment were to go toward furnishing bed linen, etc., for the Red 
Cross Hospital being organized by the school superintendent and his friends 
for the service of many wounded men who were falling in the defense of 
their area. 

She was trim of figure and animated of countenance. Her hair was 
dressed as American women attractively do theirs. Her costume was dainty 
and her feet shod in English or American shoes. We could not understand 
a word of her Russian tongue but were charmed by its friendly and well- 
mannered modulations. We made inquiries about her. She was the wife of 
a man who, till the Bolsheviki drove the "intelligenza" out, had been a pro- 
fessor in an agricultural school of a high order. Now they were far north, 
seeking safety in their old peasant city and she was doing stenographer duty 
in the county government office. 

We often mused upon the transformation. Only a few years before she 
had been as one of the countless peasant girls of the dull-faced, ill-dressed, 
red-handed, coarse-voiced type which we had seen everywhere with tools 
and implements of drudgery, never with things of refinement, except, perhaps, 
when we had seen them spinning or weaving. And here before us was one 
who had come out from among them, a sight for weary eyes and a glad- 
ness to heavy ears. How had she accomplished the metamorphosis? The 
school had done it, or rather helped her to the opportunity to rise. She 
had come to the city-village high school and completed the course and 
then with her ability to patter the keys of a Russian typewriter's thirty-six 
lettered keyboard, had travelled from Archangel to Moscow, to Petrograd, 
to Paris, to complete her education. And she told the writer one time 
that she regretted she had not gone to London and New York before she 
married the young Russian college professor. 

The school, — the common school and the high school — therein lies the 
hope of Russia. What that woman has done, has been done by many an- 
other ambitious Russian girl and will be done by many girls of Russia. 
Russian boys and girls if given the advantages of the public school will 
develop the Russian nation. 



XXXV 

"Dobra" Convalescent Hospital 

Description Of Hospital Building — Grateful Memories — Summary Of 
Medical And Surgical Cases — Feeding The Convalescents — Care 
And Entertainment — Captain Greenleaf Fine Manager. 

The American Convalescent Hospital at Archangel, Russia (American 
Expeditionary Forces, North Russia), was opened October 1, 1918, in a 
building formerly used as a Naval School of Merchant Sailors. A two and 
one-half story building, facing the Dvina River and surrounded by about two 
acres of land, over one-half of which was covered with an attractive growth 
of white birch trees. The entire building, with the exception of one room, 
Chief Surgeon's Office, and two smaller rooms, for personnel of the Chief 
Surgeon's Office and the Convalescent Hospital, was devoted to the Amer- 
ican convalescent patients and their care. The half story, eighty-five by 
eighty-five feet square, over the main building, was used for drying clothes 
and as a store room. The building proper was of wood construction, with 
two wings (one story) constructed with 24-inch brick and plaster walls. 
The floors were wood, the walls smoothly plastered and the general appear- 
ance, inside and outside, attractive. 

In addition to the inside latrines, an outside latrine with five seats and a 
urinal was built by our men. This latrine contained a heater. 

Nearly all the windows, throughout the building, were double sash and 
glass and could be opened for sufficient air, dependent upon the outside 
temperature. The first floor ceilings were fourteen feet in height, those on 
the second floor were twelve feet high. No patient had less than six hundred 
cubic feet of air space. 

Large brick stoves, one in the smaller and two in the larger rooms, heav- 
ily constructed and lined with fire brick, heated the building. A wood fire 
was built in these stoves twice daily, with sufficient heat being thrown off 
to produce a comfortable, uniform temperature at all times. The building 
was lighted by electricity. The entire building was rewired by American 
electricians and extra lights placed as necessary. The beds were wooden 
frame with heavy canvas support. These beds were made by American car- 
penters. Each patient was supplied with five blankets. 

During the first four months it was necessary for the men to use a near-by 
Russian bath-house for bathing. This was done weekly and a check kept 
upon the patients. February 1st, 1919, a wing was completed with a Thresh 
Disiftfector (for blankets and clothing), a wash room and three showers. 
A large boiler furnished hot water at all hours. The construction of this 
building was begun November 1st, 1918, but inability to obtain a boiler and 
plumbing materials deferred its completion. Three women were employed 
for washing and ironing, and clean clothing was available at all times. 

263 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

Water buckets were located on shelves irj accessible places throughout 
the building for use in case of fire. Each floor had a hose attachment. Two 
fires from overheated stoves were successfully extinguished without injury 
to patients or material damage to the building. The main floors were scrub- 
bed daily with a two per cent creosole solution, the entire floor space every 
other day. All rooms contained sufficient box cuspidors filled with sawdust. 

The kitchen contained a large brick stove and ovens and this, in con- 
junction with a smaller stove on the second floor, could be utilized to pre- 
pare food for three hundred men. Bartering with the Russians was permit- 
ted. By this means, as well as comforts supplied by the American Red Cross, 
such as cocoa, chocolate, raisins, condensed milk, honey, sugar, fruit (dried 
and canned), oatmeal, corn meal, rice, dates and egg powder, a well bal- 
anced diet was maintained throughout the winter. Semi-monthly reports of 
all exchanges, by bartering, were forwarded to Headquarters. The usual 
mess kits and mess line were employed. The large dining and recreation 
room had sufficient tables and benches to seat all patients. Boiled drinking 
water was accessible at all times. During the eight months the Hospital has 
been operating, over 3,872 pounds of grease, 2,138 pounds of bones and 
8,460 pounds of broken and stale bread have been bartered with Russian 
peasants. In return, besides eggs, fish, veal and other vegetables over 32,600 
pounds (902 poods) of potatoes have been received. Accompanying this report 
is a statement (a) of British rations (one week issue), (b) a statement of 
food barter (17 days) and (c) the menu for one week. 

The large room, facing the river, twenty-eight feet by sixty-one feet, 
was available for mess hall, recreation and entertainments. The space, 
twenty-eight feet by twenty-one feet, was separated by a projecting wall and 
pillars and contained a victrola and records, a piano, a library (one hundred 
fifty books furnished by the American Red Cross, exchanged at intervals), 
a magazine rack, reading table, machine guns and rack, a bulletin board 
and several comfortable chairs made by convalescents. A portable stage 
for entertainments was placed in this space when required. A complete set 
of scenery with flies and curtains was presented by the American Red Cross. 
In the center of the room a regulation boxing ring could be strung, the 
benches and tables being so arranged as to form an amphitheatre. The entire 
room could be cleared for dancing. At one end was a movie screen and in 
the adjoining room a No. 6 Powers movie machine which was obtained 
from the American Y. M. C. A. and installed December 5th, 1918. 

During the winter the following entertainments were given : 



Vaudeville 


5 


Musical entertainments 




Boxing exhibitions . 


4 


Russian 


3 


Lectures . 


4 


English . . . . 


2 


Minstrel shows 


2 


Band concert . 


1 


Dances 


. 10 


Kangaroo court 





A twelve-piece orchestra from the 339th Infantry band furnished music 
for the dances as well as occasionally during Sunday dinners. Each 
Wednesday and Sunday nights moving pictures were shown. These in- 
cluded a number of war films showing operations on the Western Front 

264 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVrKl 

and productions of Fairbanks, Farnum, Billy Burke, Eltinge, Hart, Mary 
Pickford, Kerrigan, Arbuckle, Bunny and Chaplin. During May baseballs, 
gloves and bats have been supplied by the American Y. M. C. A. Sunday 
afternoons religious services were conducted by chaplains of the Amer- 
ican Force. 

Canteen supplies, consisting of chocolate, stick candy, gum, cigars, cigar- 
ettes, smoking and chewing tobacco, toilet soap, tooth paste, canned fruits 
(pineapple, pears, cherries, apricots, peaches) and canned vegetables could 
be purchased from the Supply Company, 339th Infantry. These supplies 
were drawn on the first of each month and furnished the men at cost. 

The personnel consisted of Capt. C. A. Greenleaf, Commanding Officer, 
Medical Corps; an officer from the Supply Company, 339th Infantry 
(charge of equipment); two Sergeants, Medical Corps; three Privates, 
Medical Corps. With these exceptions all the details required for the care 
and maintenance of the hospital were furnished by men selected from the 
convalescent patients. 

It took seventy-six men every day for the various kitchen, cleaning, 
clerical and guard details and in addition other details from convalescent 
patients were made as follows : Six patrols of ten men each, each patrol 
in charge of a non-commissioned officer and three sections of machine gun- 
ners were always prepared for an emergency. Guards were furnished for 
Headquarters building. Two type-setters and one proof-reader reported 
for work, daily, at the office of The American Sentinel (a weekly publication 
for the American troops). Typists, stenographers and clerks were fur- 
nished different departments at Headquarters as required. Orderlies, kitchen 
police and cooks were furnished to the American Red Cross Hospital and 
helpers to American Red Cross Headquarters. This, was light work always 
which was conducive to the convalescence of the men. 

Captain Greenleaf always managed to care for all patients. On January 
18th, 1919, a ward was opened at Olga Barracks which accommodated twenty- 
five patients. These patients were rationed by Headquarters Company and 
reported for sick call at the infirmary located in the same building. 

On March 11th, 1919, an Annex was opened at Smolny Barracks with 
eighty beds. For this purpose a barracks formerly occupied by enlisted men 
was remodelled. New floors were put in, the entire building sheathed on 
the inside, rooms constructed for office and sick call and a kitchen in which 
a new stove and ovens were built. This Annex was operated from the 
Convalescent Hospital, one Sergeant, Medical Corps, and two Privates, Med- 
ical Corps, were detailed to this building. Details from the patients operated 
the mess and took care of the building. Supplies were sent daily from the 
hospital to the Annex and the mess was of the same character. 

On April 28th, 1919, three tents were erected in the yard of the Hospital. 
Plank floors were built, elevated on logs and these accommodated thirty-six 
patients. On April 28th, 1919, with the Hospital, Annex and tents two hun-, 
dred eight-two patients could be accommodated. This number represents 
the maximum Convalescent Hospital capacity, during its existence and was 

265 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 



sufficient for the requirements of the American Forces. The ward at Olga 
Barracks was only used for a few weeks. 

During April eighty-two patients were discharged from the Convalescent 
Hospital and sent to Smolny Barracks for "Temporary Light Duty at Base." 

The Convalescent Hospital was the best place, bar none, in Russia, to eat 
in winter of 1918-19. The commanding officer was fortunate to have as a 
patient the mess sergeant of Company "D." That resourceful doughboy took 
the rations issued by the British and by systematic bartering with the natives 
he built up a famous mess. Below is a verbatim extract from Captain 
Greenleafs report. BARTER RETURN 

Period: 17 days— from March 21th, 1919, to April Uth, 1919. 



Commodities Bartered 

Bread, stale 372 lbs. 

Bread, pieces of 403 lbs. 

Grease 365 lbs. 

Bones 331 lbs. 

Beans 425 lbs. 

Peas 156 lbs. 

Rice 746 lbs. 

Dates 25 lbs. 

Bacon 678 lbs. 

Lard 960 lbs. 

Sugar 274 lbs. 

Jam 56 lbs. 

Pea Soup 318 pkgs. 

Limejuice 3 cases 

The menu for the week of April 20-26, inclusive, was as follows: 



Commodities Received in Return 

Potatoes 5281 lbs. 

Carrots 133 lbs. 

Cabbage 339.5 lbs. 

Turnips 851 lbs. 

Onions 200 lbs. 

Veal 938 lbs. 

Liver 76.5 lbs. 

Eggs 198 



Breakfast 
Boiled eggs 
Fried bacon 
Oatmeal and milk 
Bread and butter 
Coffee 



Breakfast 
Oatmeal and milk 
Fried bacon 
Wheatcakes and syrup 
Bread and jam 
Coffee 



Breakfast 
Oatmeal and milk 
Fried bacon 
Bread and jam 
Coffee 



APRIL 20— SUNDAY 
Dinner 
Roast veal and gravy 
Mashed potatoes 
Sage dressing 
Stewed tomatoes 
Apple pie 
Mixed pickles 
Bread and butter 
Coffee 

APRIL 21— MONDAY 
Dinner 

Steaks 

Creamed potatoes 
Cabbage, fried 
Bread and butter 
Peach pudding 
Coffee 

APRIL 22— TUESDAY 
Dinner 
Roast mutton 
Baked potatoes 
Mashed turnips 
Bread and butter 
Chocolate pudding 
Coffee 



Supper 
Roast beef 
Potato salad 
Lemon cake 
Bread and jam 
Cocoa 



Supper 
Beef stew 
Fried cakes 
Bread and butter 
Tea 



Supper 
Hamburger steak 
Boiled potatoes 
Stewed dates 
Bread and butter 
Coffee 



26% 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 



Breakfast 
Oatmeal and milk 
Fried bacon 
Bread and jam 
Coffee 



Breakfast 
Oatmeal and milk 
Fried bacon 
Bread and jam 
Coffee 



Breakfast 
Oatmeal and milk 
Fried bacon 
Wheatcakes and syrup 
Bread and jam 
Coffee 



Breakfast 
Rice and milk 
Fried bacon 
Bread and butter 
Coffee 



APRIL 23— WEDNESDAY 

Dinner 
Roast beef 
Mashed potatoes 
Creamed peas 
Bread and butter 
Bread pudding 
Coffee 

APRIL 24— THURSDAY 

Dinner 
Roast beef 
Escalloped potatoes 
Baked turnips 
Bread and butter 
Rice pudding 
Coffee 

APRIL 25— FRIDAY 
Dinner 
Steaks 

Boiled potatoes 
Creamed onions 
Bread and butter 
Fruit pudding, cherry 
Coffee 

APRIL 26— SATURDAY 

Dinner 
Roast beef 
Creamed potatoes 
Baked beans 
Bread and butter 
Chocolate pudding 
Coffee 



Supper 
Mutton chops 
Boiled potatoes 
Bread and butter 
Chocolate cake 
Coffee 



Supper 
Mutton stew 
Rolls and jam 
Tea 



Supper 
Hamburger steak 
Boiled potatoes 
Stewed apricots 
Bread and butter 
Coffee 



Supper 
Vegetable stew 
Stewed prunes 
Bread and butter 
Tea 



To the doughboy, who that week in April was eating his bully and hard- 
tack in the forest at Kurgomin or Khalmogora or Bolsheozerki or Chekuevo 
or Verst 448, this menu seems like a fairy tale, but he knows that the boys 
who had fought on the line and fallen before Bolo fire or fallen ill with the 
hardship strain, were entitled to every dainty and luxury that was afforded 
by the dobra convalescent hospital. 

From October 1st, 1918, to June 12th, 1919, this American Convalescent 
Hospital served eleven hundred and eighty out of the fifty-five hundred Amer- 
icans of the expeditionary force. From Captain Greenleaf's official report 
the following facts of interest are presented. 

Of infectious and epidemic diseases there were two hundred and forty-six 
cases of which four were mumps, one hundred and sixty-seven were influ- 
enza and the remainder complications which resulted from influenza. The 
pneumonia cases developed early. One man reported from guard duty, de- 
veloped a rapidly involving pneumonia which soon became general and 
culminated in death within twenty-four hours. The best results followed 
the use of Dovers powder and quinine, — alternation two and one-half grains 
of Dovers with five grains of quinine every two hours, five to ten grains 
of Dovers being given at bedtime. Expectorants were given as required. 



367 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 



Very little stimulation was necessary. Many of these cases, after the acute 
symptoms subsided, showed a persistent tachycardia which continued for 
some days and in a few cases (seven) became chronic. In these cases medi- 
cation proved of little benefit, rest and a proper diet being the most efficacious 
treatment. Patients convalescing from pneumonia were evacuated to England 
or given Base Duty. 

Of tuberculosis there were oiily thirteen cases which were as far as pos- 
sible isolated. Of venereal cases there were only one hundred and seventy- 
four. They had received treatment in British 53rd Stationary Hospital, and 
came to the American Convalescent hospital simply for re-equipment. Nearly 
all were immediately discharged to duty. 

Of nervous diseases there were nineteen cases, all of which were neuritis 
except two cases of paralysis. Of mental diseases and defects there were 
only fourteen. This is a remarkable showing when we consider the strain 
of the strange, long, dark winter campaign, and of these fourteen cases six 
were mental deficiency that were not detected by the experts at time of 
enlistment and induction, three were hysteria, two neurasthenia, and three 
psychasthenia. Here let us add that there was only one case of suicide and 
one case of attempted suicide. 

There were eighteen eye cases and nineteen ear cases, three nose, and 
eighteen of the throat. Of the circulatory system the total was sixty-eight 
of which twenty-two were heart trouble and thirty-one hemorrhoids brought 
on by exposure. 

There were eighty respiratory cases, ninety-three digestive cases, of which 
sixteen were appendicitis and thirty-two were hernia. Of genito-urinary, 
which were non-venereal, there were twenty cases. Of skin diseases there 
were thirty-nine. Scabies was the only skin lesion which has been common 
among the troops. Warm baths and sulphur ointment were used with excel- 
lent results. 

From exposure there were one hundred and one cases of bones and loco- 
motion. Trench feet were bad to treat. From external causes there were 
two hundred and fifty-five cases. Of these two were burns, two dislocation, 
twenty-six severe frost bite cases, two exhaustion from exposure, twenty- 
three fractures and sprains, and two hundred wound cases. Many severely 
wounded were sent to Hospital ship "Kalyon," and many were evacuated to 
Base Section Three in England and only the convalescent wounded, of course, 
came to the dobra convalescent hospital. 

The following is Capt. Greenleaf 's summary : 

Patients 1180 

Hospital days, actual 17048 

Hospital days, per patient 14.45 

Hospital days, awaiting evacuation 11196 

Hospital days, per patient ........ 9.49 

Hospital days, special duty 7273 

Hospital days, per patient 6.16 

Hospital days, total 35517 

Hospital days, per patient 30.10 



268 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

Note — This table is made out in this manner for several reasons. In the 
first place evacuation lists were submitted to the Chief Surgeon each Friday, 
containing a list of those patients who were unfit for further front line duty 
in Russia. Lack of transportation and the long delays in completing the 
evacuations should not be charged to actual hospital days. Again it was 
necessary, under the conditions and owing to the fact that the hospital was 
dependent upon patients for its existence, that men be selected who were 
competent to have charge of certain work. A most efficient mess sergeant 
and competent cooks were selected. The men to have charge of the heating 
system and boilers were chosen. Good interpreters were held. And many 
cases in which a competent man entered as a patient, who was skillful in 
certain work, that man was held indefinitely, for the good of the service 
and the hospital. In this summary these cases have been listed as hospital 
days, special duty. 

DISPOSITION OF PATIENTS IN AMERICAN CONVALESCENT 

HOSPITAL 
Evacuated to Enoland 

October 27, 1918 46 

December 6, 1918 56 

December 27, 1918 10 

January 24, 1919 7 

February 24, 1919 . 15 

June 1, 1919 183 

Total 317 

Discharged to American Red Cross Hospital 

For surgical attention 24 

For medical attention 18 

Discharged to British Hospitals 

For special treatment 13 

Discharged to Duty 808 

The medical care of our comrades was as well-looked after as possibly 
could be in North Russia. All patients were examined, when they entered 
the hospital and classified. They were marked, — no duty, light duty inside, 
light duty outside, light duty sitting, or light duty not involving the use 
of right (or left) arm. A record, showing their organization, company, 
rank, duty, diagnosis, date of admission, source of admission, room and bed, 
was made. Their business in private life was considered and they were 
assigned to work compatible with their training. Any medication they 
might need was prescribed. Owing to lack of bottles patients reported for 
medicine four times daily and a record was thus kept of dosage. Patients 
were examined weekly and re-classified. Sick call was held, daily, at 8:30 
a. m., at which time patients, requiring special attention, reported and also, 
surgical dressings were applied. 

The last patient was discharged to duty June 12th, 1919. We know 
that the one thousand one hundred and eighty men who passed through that 
hospital join the writers in saying that, considering conditions, the con- 
valescent hospital was a wonder. 



2P9 



XXXVI 

American Red Cross in North Russia 

American Red Cross On Errands Of Mercy Precede Troops — Summary 
Of Aid Given People — Aid And Comforts Freely Given American 
Troops — Summary — Commendatory Words Of General Richardson — 
Our Weekly "Sentinel" Put Out By Red Cross — Returned Men 
Strong For American Red Cross Work In North Russia. 

Even before the question of American participation in the Allied expedition 
to North Russia had been decided upon, the American Red Cross had 
dispatched a mission of thirteen persons, v*rith four thousand two hundred 
tons of food and medicine, for the relief of the civilian population. When, 
shortly thereafter, a considerable detachment of American doughboys, 
engineers and ambulance corps troops were landed, the Red Cross had the 
nucleus of an organization to provide for the needs of our soldiers as well 
as for the civilian population. 

A report, made public here by the American Red Cross on its work in 
North Russia, gives an interesting picture of conditions on our Arctic 
battle front during the war. The food situation among the civilian popula- 
tion was acute. With the city swollen in population through a steady influx 
of refugees, few fresh supplies were coming in and hoarded supplies were 
rapidly diminishing. Coarse bread and fish were staple articles of food, and 
there was a grave shortage of clothing. 

The desperate need for foodstuffs in the regions far north along the 
Arctic shores was brought sharply to the attention of the Allied Food 
Committee when delegates from Pechora arrived by reindeer teams and 
camped at the doors of the committee urging assistance. They brought 
samples of the bread they were forced to eat. It was made of a small 
quantity of white flour mixed with ground-up dried fish. Other samples 
which were shown were made from immature frostbitten rye grain, and 
a third was composed of a small quantity of white flour mixed with reindeer 
moss. A small quantity of rye flour mixed with chopped coarse straw was 
the basis of a fourth example. 

Much attention was devoted by the Red Cross to caring for school 
children and orphans. Over two million hot lunches were distributed, during 
a period of a few months, to three hundred and thirty schools with twenty 
thousand pupils. Every orphanage in the district was outfitted with the 
things it needed and received a regular fortnightly issue of food supplies. 
Over twenty thousand suits of underwear were given out to refugees. To 
provide for the many persons separated from their families or from employ- 
ment on account of the war, the Red Cross established a regular free 
employment agency. 

The writer recalls having seen in Pinega in February men who had left 
their Petchora homes eight months before to go to Archangel for the 

271 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

precious flour provided by the American Red Cross. The civil war had 
made transportation slow and extremely hazardous. 

Expeditions were constantly sent out from Archangel to various points 
with supplies of food, clothing, and medicaments. The most extensive of 
the civilian relief enterprises undertaken by the Red Cross Mission to 
Russia was the sending of a boat from Archangel to Kem with a cargo 
of fifty-five tons. This was distributed either by the Red Cross officials 
themselves or by responsible local authorities. 

Food rations and clothing were given to three hundred destitute famihes 
in Archangel which, upon careful investigation, were found to be deserving. 
Housing conditions were improved and clothing, which had been salvaged 
from sunken steamers and lay idle in the customs house, was dried and 
distributed. 

Besides supplying all Russian civilian hospitals in and around Archangel 
regularly with medicine, sheets, blankets, pillows and food rations, the Red 
Cross opened up a Red Cross hospital in Archangel, which was finally turned 
over to the local government to be used as a base hospital for the Russian 
army. Red Cross medicines are credited with having checked the serious 
influenza epidemic and with having worked against its recurrence. 

Medicaments worth one million roubles were sent by the Red Cross to 
the various district zemstvos. Russian prisoners of war, returning from 
Germany through the Bolshevik lines to North Russia, were also taken 
care of. 

Work among the American soldiers In North Russia was thorough and 
effective. The daily ration was supplemented and many American soldiers 
received from the Red Cross quantities of rolled oats, sugar, milk, and rice, 
besides all the regular Red Cross comforts, including cigarettes, stationery, 
chewing gum, athletic goods, playing cards, toilet articles, phonographs, 
sweaters, socks, blankets, etc. 

Supplies were sent as regularly as possible to the troops on the line, 
generally in the face of apparently insurmountable transportation difficulties. 
Units of troops, even in the most inaccessible and out of the way places, 
were visited by Red Cross workers, occasionally at great danger to their 
lives. 

With the assistance of the Red Cross The American Sent^mel, a weekly 
newspaper, was printed and distributed among the troops and did much 
to keep up their morale. One of the last acts performed by the Red Cross 
for the American Expeditionary Forces in Archangel was to help and speed 
to their new homes eight war brides. 

The veteran of the North Russian expedition will never look at his old 
knit helmet or wristlets, scarf, or perhaps eat a rare dish of rolled oats, 
or bite off a chew of plug, or listen to a certain piece on the graphaphone, 
or look at a Red Cross Christmas Seal without a warm feeling under his 
left breast pocket for the American Red Cross. 



272 




General Ironside Inspecting Doughboys 



U S OFFICIAL PHOTO 




Burial of Lieut. Clifford Phillips 



U S OFFICIAL PHOTO 



XXXVII 

Captive Doughboys in Bolshevikdom 

Doughboy Captives Still Coming Out Of Red Russia — Red Cross Starts 
Prisoner Exchange In Archangel Area — White Flag Incidents In 
No Man's Land — Remarkable Picture Taken — Men Who Were 
Liberated — Sergeant Leitzell's Gripping Story Of Their Captivity. 

In August, 1920, came out of Bolshevik Russia, as startlingly as though 
from the grave, Corp. Prince of "B" Company, who had been wounded 
and captured at Toulgas, March 1, 1919. This leads to our story of the 
captives in Bolshevikdom. One of the interesting incidents of the spring 
defensive was the exchange of prisoners. It was brought about quite 
largely through the efforts of the American Red Cross, which was very 
anxious to try to get help to the Americans still in interior Russia, espe- 
cially the prisoners of war. When the Bolsheviki captured the Allied men 
at Bolsheozerki in March they took a British chaplain, who pleaded that 
he was a non-combatant and belonged to a fraternal order whose prin- 
ciples were similar to the Soviet principles. Thinking they had a convert, 
the Soviet Commissar gave Father Roach his freedom and sent him through 
the lines at the railroad front in April. 

News was brought back by Father Roach that many American and 
British and French prisoners were at Moscow or on their way to Moscow. 

Accordingly, the American Red Cross was instrumental in prevailing 
upon the military authorities to open white flag conversations at the front 
line in regard to a possible exchange of prisoners. A remarkable photograph 
is included in this volume of that first meeting. One or two other meet- 
ings were not quite so formal. At one time the excited Bolos forgot their 
own men and the enemy who were parleying in the middle of No Man's 
Land, and started a lively artillery duel with the French artillery. At an- 
other time the Americans' Russian Archangel Allies got excited and fired 
upon the Bolshevik soldiers who were sitting under a white flag on the 
railroad track watching the American captain come towards them. Happy 
to say, there were no casualties by this mistake. But it sure was a ticklish 
undertaking for the Americans themselves later in the day to walk out 
under a flag of truce to explain the mistake and inquire about the progress 
of the prisoners exchange conversations going on. At Vologda, American, 
British and French officers were guests of the Bolshevik authorities. Their 
return was expected and came during the first week of May. 

One American soldier, Pvt. Earl Fulcher, of "H" Company, and one 
French soldier were brought back and in exchange for them four former 
Bolshevik officers were given. Report was brought that other soldiers were 
being given their freedom by the Bolshevik government and were going out 
by way of Petrograd and Viborg, Finland. It was learned that some 

273 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

American soldiers were in hospital under care of the Bolshevik medical 
men. Every effort was made by military authorities in North Russia to 
clear up the fate of the many men who had been reported missing in action 
and missing after ambush by the Reds who cut off an occasional patrol of 
Americans or British or French soldiers. 

But the Bolshevik military authorities were unable to trace all of their 
prisoners. In the chaos of their organization it is not surprising. We know 
that our own War Department lost Comrade Anthony Konjura, Company 
"A" 310th Engineers, while he was on his way home from Russia, woui.dedi 
on the hospital ship which landed him in England. There his mother .-ent 
and found him in a hospital. An American sergeant whose story appears 
in this volume, says that while he was in Moscow six British soldiers 
were luckily discovered by the Red authorities in a foul prison where they 
had been lost track of. Even as this book goes to press we are itill hoping 
that others of our own American comrades and of our allies will yet come 
to life out of Russia and be restored to their own land and loved ones. 

Corporal Arthur Prince, of "B" Company, who was ambushed and 
wounded and captured in March, 1919, at Toulgas was, finally in August, 
1920, released from hospital and prison in Russia and crippled and sick 
joined American troops in Germany. His pluck and stamina must have 
been one hundred per cent to stand it all those long seventeen months. His 
comrade, Herbert Schroeder, of "B" Company, who was captured on the 
21st of September, has never been found. His comrades still hope that he 
was the American printer whom the Reds declared was printing their 
propaganda in English for them at Viatka. 

Comrade George Albers, 'T' Company, in November, 1918, was on a 
lone observation post at the railroad front. A Bolo reconnaissance patrol 
surprised and caught him. He was the American soldier who was shown 
to the comrades at Kodish on the river bridge after Armistice Day. He 
was afterward sent on to Moscow and went out with others to freedom. 
With him went out Comrades Walter Huston and Mike Haurlik of "C" 
Company, who had been taken prisoners in action on November 29th near 
Ust Padenga on the same day that gallant Cufi and his ten men were 
trapped and all were killed or captured. These two men survived. In this 
liberated party was also Comrade Anton Vanis, of Company "D" who was 
lost in the desperate rear guard action at Shegovari. Also came Comrade 
William R. Schuelke, "H" Company, who had been given up for dead. 
And in the party was Merle V. Arnold. American "Y" man, who had been 
captured in March at Bolsheozerki. Six of our allied comrades, Royal Scots, 
came out with the party. These men all owed their release chiefly to the 
efforts of Mr. L. P. Penningroth, of Tipton, Iowa, Secretary of the Pris- 
oners-of-War Release Station in Copenhagen, who secured the release of 
the men by going in person to Moscow. 

With the return of Comrade Schuelke we learn that he was one of the "H" 
Company patrol under Corporal Collins which was ambushed near Bol- 
sheozerki, March 17th. One of his comrades, August Peterson, died April 
12th in a Bolshevik hospital. His Corporal, Earl Collins, was in the same 

274 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

hospital severely wounded. His fate is still unknown but doubtless he is 
under the mossy tundra. His comrade, Josef Romatowski, was killed in 
the ambush, comrade John Frucce was liberated via Finland and his com- 
rade, Earl Fulcher, as we have seen, was exchanged on the railroad front 
in May. 

On March 31st two other parties of Americans were caught in ambush 
by the Reds who had surrounded the Verst 18 Force near Bolsheozerki. 
Mechanic Jens Laursen of "M" Company was captured along with Father 
Roach and the British airplane man wounded in the action which cost 
also the life of Mechanic Dial of "M" Company. And at the same time 
another party going from the camp toward Obozerskaya consisting of 
Supply Sergeant Glenn Leitzell and Pvt. Freeman Hogan of "M" Com- 
pany together with Bryant Ryal, a "Y" man, going after supplies, were 
captured by the Reds. These men were all taken to Moscow and later lib- 
erated. Their story has been written up in an interesting way by Comrade 
Leitzell. It fairly represents the conditions under which those prisoners 
of war in Bolshevikdom suffered till they were liberated : 

"On March 31st, 1919, at 8 :30 a. m. I left the front lines with a comrade, 
Freeman Hogan, and a Russian driver, on my way back to Obozerskaya for 
supplies. About a quarter of a verst, 500 yards, from our rear artillery, 
we were surprised by a patrol of Bolos, ten or twelve in number, who 
leaped out of the snowbanks and held us up at the point of pistols, grenades 
and rifles. Then then stripped us of our arms and hurried us off the road 
and into the woods. To our great surprise we were joined by Mr. Ryal, 
the Y. M. C. A. Secretary who had been just ahead of us. 

"At once they started us back to their lines with one guard in front, 
three in the rear and three on snow skiis on each side of the freshly cut 
trail in the deep snow. We knew from the signs and from the fire fight 
that soon followed that a huge force of the Reds were in rear of our force. 
After seven versts through the snow we reached the village of Bolsheozerki. 
On our arrival we were met by a great many Bolsheviks who occupied the 
villages in tremendous numbers. Some tried to beat us with sticks and 
cursed and spat on us as we were shoved along to the Bolshevik commander. 

"One of the camp loiterer's scowling eyes caught sight of the ser- 
geant's gold teeth. His cupidity was aroused. Raising his brass-bound old 
whipstock he struck at the prisoner's mouth to knock out the shining prize. 
But the prisoner guard saved the American soldier from the blow by shov- 
ing him so vigorously that he sprawled in the snow while the heavy whip 
went whizzing harmlessly past the soldier's ear. The Bolo sleigh driver swore 
and the prisoner guard scowled menacingly at the brutal but baffled com- 
rade. The American soldiers needed no admonitions of skora skora to 
make them step lively toward the Red General's headquarters. 

"One of the first things we saw on our arrival was a Russian sentry 
who had gone over from our lines. They demanded our blouses and fur 
caps, also our watches and rings. In a little while we saw three others 
arrive — Father Roach of the 17th King's Company of Liverpool and Private 
Stringfellow of the Liverpools, also Mechanic Jens Laursen of our own "M" 

275 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

Company who had escaped death in the machine gun ambush that had killed 
his comrade Mechanic Dial and driver and horse. Later Lieut. Tatham of 
the Royal Air Force came in with a shattered arm. His two companions 
and the sleigh drivers had been mortally wounded and left by the Bolshe- 
viks on the road. 

"After that we had our interview with a Bolshevik Intelligence Officer 
who tried to get information from us. But he got no information from 
us as we pleaded that we were soldiers of supply and were not familiar 
with the details of the scheme of defense. And it worked. He sent us 
away under guard, who escorted us in safety through the camp to a shack. 

"Here we were billetted in a filthy room with a lot of Russian prison- 
ers, some the survivors of the defense of Bolsheozerki and some the recal- 
citrants or suspected deserters from the Bolo ranks. We were given half 
of a salt fish, a lump of sour black bread- and some water for our hunger. 
On the bread we had to use an ax as it was frozen. We managed to thaw 
some of it out and wash it down with water. After this we stretched in 
exhaustion on the floor and slept ofif the day and night in spite of the con- 
stant roar of Bolo guns and the bursting of shells that were coming from 
our camp at Verst 18. By that sign we knew the Bolo had not overpowered 
our comrades by his day's fighting. It was the only comforting thought 
we had as we pulled the dirty old rags about us that the Reds had given 
us in exchange for our overcoats and blouses, and went to sleep. 

"We woke up in the morning midst the roar of a redoubled fight. A fine 
April Fool's Day we thought. We were stiff and sore and desperately hun- 
gry. But our breakfast was the remainder of the fish and sour bread. 
Later the guard relieved us of some of our trinkets and pocket money, 
after which they gave us our rations for the day, consisting of a half can 
of horse meat, a salt fish, and twelve ounces of black bread. 

"Then we were taken to see the General commanding this huge force. 
He gave us a cigarette, which was very acceptable as we were quite un- 
nerved, not knowing what would happen to us afterwards if we gave no 
more information than we had the day before. He tried to impress us 
by taking his pistol and pointing out on a map of the area just where his 
troops were/ that day surrounding our comrades in the beleagured camp in 
the woods at Verst 18 on the road, as well as many versts beyond them 
cutting a trail through the deep snow to the very railroad in rear of Obozer- 
skaya. He boasted that his forces that day would crush the opposing force 
and he would move upon Obozerskaya and go up and down the railroad 
and clear away every obstacle as he had done in the Upper Vaga Valley, 
where he boasted he had driven the Allied troops from Shenkursk and pur- 
sued them for over sixty miles. Then he informed us that we were to be 
sent as prisoners to Moscow. 

"Later in the morning we were started south toward Emtsa on foot. 
We could hear the distant cannonading on the 445 front as we marched 
along during the day on the winter trail which if it had been properly 
patrolled by the French and Russians would not have permitted the sur- 
prise fiank march in force by this small army that menaced the whole 

276 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEViKI 

Vologda force. Our thirty-five verst march that day and night — for we 
walked till 10:00 p. m. — was made more miserable by the thought that our 
comrades were up against a far greater force than they dreamed, as was 
evidenced to us by the hordes of men we had seen in Bolsheozerki and 
the transportation that filled every verst of the trail from the south. We 
made temporary camp in a log hut along the road, building a roaring fire 
outside. We would sleep a half hour and then go outside the hut to thaw 
out by the fire, and so on through the wretched night. 

"At 4 :00 a. m. we started again our footsore march, after a fragment of 
black bread and a swallow of water, and walked twenty-seven versts to 
Shelaxa, the Red concentration camp. Here we underwent a minute search. 
All papers were taken for examination. Our American money was returned 
to us, as was later a check on a London bank which one of my officers had 
given me. I secreted it and some money so well in a waist belt that later I 
had the satisfaction of cashing the check in Sweden into kronen in King 
Gustave's Royal Bank in Stockholm. After a meal of salt fish and black 
bread fried in fish oil, and some hot water to drink, we were given an 
hour's rest and then started on the road again to Emtsa, twenty-four versts 
away, reaching that railroad point at midnight. Here we were brought before 
the camp commandant who roughly stripped us of all our clothes except 
our breeches and gave us the Bolshevik underwear and ragged outer gar- 
ments that they had discarded. And buddies who have seen Bolo prisoners 
come into our lines can imagine how bad a discarded Bolo coat or under- 
shirt must be. After this we were locked up in a box car with no fire 
and three guards over us. 

"Next morning, April 3rd, the car door was opened and the Bolshevik 
soldiers made angry demonstrations toward us and were kept out only by 
our guards' bayonets. We were fed some barley wash and the rye bread 
which tasted wonderful after the previous food. I paid a British two- 
shilling piece which I had concealed in my shoe to a guard to get me a tin 
to put our food in, and we made wooden spoons. That night we were 
lined up against the car and asked if we knew that we were going to be 
shot. But this event, I am happy to say, never took place. We went by 
train to Plesetskaya that day. Father Roach was taken to the commandant's 
quarters and we did not see him till the next day, when he told us he had 
enjoyed a fine night's sleep and expected to be sent back across the lines 
and would take messages to our comrades to let them know we were 
alive and on our way to Moscow." 

It is interesting to note that the American Sergeant's insistence that 
he and his companions be given bath and means to shave, won the respect 
and assistance of the guard and the Bolshevik officer. Of course in mak- 
ing the two day's march in prisoner convoy from Bolsheozerki to Emtsa 
there had been severe hardship and privation and painful uncertainty and 
mental agony over their possible fate. And they had not, stopped long 
enough in one place to enable them to make an appeal for fair treatment. 
Imagine the three American soldiers and the "Y" man and the two 
British soldiers sitting disconsolately in a filthy taplooshka, hands and faces 

277 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 
t 

with three days and nights of grime and dirt, scratching themselves under 
their dirty rags, cussing the active cooties that had come with the shirts, 
and trying to soothe their itching bewhiskered faces. Here the resourceful 
old sergeant keenly picked out the cleanest one of the guards and approached 
him with signs and his limited Russki gavareet and made his protest at 
being left dirty. He won out. The soldier horoshawed several times 
and seechassed away to return a few minutes later with a long Russian 
blade and a tiny green cake of soap and a tin of hot water. Under the stim- 
ulation of a small silver coin from the sergeant's store he assumed the role 
of barber and smoothed up the faces of the whole crowd of prisoners. And 
then followed the trip under guard to the steaming bath-house that is such 
a vivid memory to all soldiers who soldiered up there under the Arctic 
Circle. In this connection it may be related that later on at Moscow the 
obliging Commissar of the block in which they were quartered hunted up 
for them razors and soap and even found for them tooth brushes and 
tubes of toothpaste which had been made in Detroit, U. S. A., and sold to 
Moscow merchants in a happier time. 

"On April 5th we left Plesetskaya, after saying good-bye to the Eng- 
lish Chaplain who seemed greatly pleased that he was to get his freedom 
and had his pockets full of Bolshevik propaganda. We reached Naundoma 
after a night of terrible cold in the unheated car and during the next two 
days on the railway journey to Vologda had nothing to eat. On April 7th 
we reached that city and were locked up with about twenty Russians. 
Here we got some black bread that seemed to have sand in it and some 
sour cabbage soup which we all shared, Russians and all, from a single 
bucket. Next day we thought it a real improvement to have a separate 
tin and a single wooden spoon for the forlorn group of Americans and 
British. 

"At Plesetskaya we were questioned very thoroughly by a Russian officer 
who spoke English very well and showed marked sympathy toward us and 
saw to it that we were better treated, and later in Moscow saw to it that we 
had some small favors. In three days' time we were again on the train 
for Moscow, travelling in what seemed luxury after our late experience. 
The trains to Moscow ran only once a week as there were no materials 
to keep up the equipment. 

"On our arrival we found the streets sloppy and muddy, with heaps of 
ice and snow and dead horses among the rubbish. Few business places 
were open, all stores having been looted. Here and there was a semi- 
illicit stand where horsemeat, salt fish, carrots or cabbage and parsnips, 
and sour milk could be bought on the sly if you had the price. But it was 
very little at any price and exceedingly uncertain of appearance. We were 
sent to join the other prisoners, French, English, Scotch and Americans who 
had preceded us from the front to Moscow. They had tales similar to ours 
to tell us. 

"The next morning at 10:00 a. m. we were wondering when we would 
eat. The answer was : Twelve noon. Cabbage soup headed the menu, then 
came dead horse meat, or salt fish if you chose it, black bread and water. 

278 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

Same menu for supper. We learned that the people of the city fared 
scarcely better. All were rationed. The soldiers and officials of the Bol- 
sheviks fared better than the others. Children were favored to some ex- 
tent. But the 'intelligenza' and the former capitalists were in sore straits. 
Many were almost starving. Death rate was high. The soldier got a pound 
of bread, workmen half a pound, others a quarter of a pound. Iri this 
way they maintained their army. Fight, work for the Red government or 
starve. Some argument. Liberty is unknown under the Soviet rule. Their 
motto as I saw it is : What is yours is mine.' " 

Captivity with all its desperate hardships and baleful uncertainties, had 
its occasional brighter thread. The American boys feel especially grateful 
to Mr. Merle V. Arnold, of Lincoln, Nebraska, the American Y. M. C. A. 
man who had been captured by the Red Guards a few days preceding! their 
capture. He was able to do things for them when they reached Moscow. 
And when he was almost immediately given his liberty and allowed to go 
out through Finland, he did not forget the boys he left behind. He carried 
their case to the British and Danish Red Cross and a weekly allowance 
of 200 roubles found its way over the belligerent lines to Moscow and was 
given to the boys, much to the grateful assistance of the starving allied 
prisoners of war. 

But they became resourceful as all American soldiers seem to become, 
whether at Bakaritza, Smolny, Archangel, Kholmogora, Moscow or where- 
not, and they found ways of adding to their rations. Imagine one of them 
lining up with the employees of a Bolo public soup kitchen and going 
through ostensibly to do some work and playing now-you-see-it-now-you- 
don't-see-it with a dish of salt or a head of cabbage or a loaf of bread 
or a chunk of sugar, or when on friendly terms with the Bolshevik public 
employees volunteering to help do some work that led them to where a little 
money would buy something on the side at inside employees' prices. Imagine 
them with their little brass kettle, stewing it over their little Russian sheet- 
iron stove, stirring in their birdseed substitute for rolled oats and potatoes 
and cabbage and perhaps a few shreds of as clean a piece of meat as they 
could buy, on the sly. See the big wooden spoons travelling happily from 
pot to lips and hear the chorus of Dobra, dobra. 

They will not ever forget the English Red Cross woman who constantly 
looked out for the five Americans, the thirty-five British and fifteen French 
prisoners, finding ways to get for them occasional morsels of bacon and 
bread and small packages of tea and tobacco. On Easter dav she enter- 
tained them all in the old palace of Ivan the Terrible. 

How good it was one day to meet an American woman who had eighteen 
years before married a Russian in Chicago and come to Moscow to live. 
Her husband v/as a grain buyer for the Bolshevik government but she was a 
hater of the Red Rule and gave the boys all the comfort she could, which 
was little owing to the surveillance of the Red authorities. 

And one day the sergeant met an American dentist who had for many 
years been the tooth mechanic for the old Czar and his family. He fixed 
up a tooth as best he could for the American soldier. The Reds had about 

279 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

stripped him but left him his tools and his shop so that he could serve the 
Red rulers when their molars and canines needed attention. 

The American boys gained the confidence of the Russians in Moscow 
just as they had always done in North Russia. They were finally given 
permission to participate in the privileges of one of the numerous clubs 
that the Red officials furnished up lavishly for themselves in the palatial 
quarters of old Moscow. Here they could find literature and lectures and 
lounging room and for a few roubles often gained a hot plate of good soup 
or a delicacy in the shape of a horse steak. Of course the latter was always 
a little dubious to the American doughboy, for in walking the street he 
toq often saw the poor horse that dropped dead from starvation or over- 
driving, approached by the butcher with the long knife. He merely raised 
the horse's tail, slashed around the anal opening of the animal with his 
blade, then reached in his great arm and drew out the entrails and cast them 
to one side for the dogs to growl and fight over. Later would come the 
sleigh with axes and other knives to cut up the frozen carcass. On May 
day the boys nearly lost their membership in the club, along with its soup 
and horse-steak privileges because they would not march in the Red parade 
to the gaily decorated square to hear Lenin speak to his subjects. 

Was the Red government able to feed the people by commandeering the 
food? No. At last the peasants gained the sufferance of the Red rulers to 
traffic their foodstuffs on the streets even as we have seen them with hand- 
fuls of vegetables on the market streets of Archangel. Prices were) out of 
sight. Under a shawl in a tiny box, an old peasant woman on Easter Day 
was offering covertly a few eggs at two hundred roubles apiece. 

Imagine the feelings of the boys when they walked about freely as they 
did, being dressed in the regular Russian long coats and caps and being 
treated with courtesy by all Russians who recognized them as Americans. 
Here they found themselves looking at the great hotel built on American 
lines of architecture to please the eye and shelter the American travellers 
of the olden times before the great war, a building now used by the Red 
Department of State. Here they were examind by one of Tchicherin's men 
upon their arrival in the Red capital. Further they could walk about the 
Kremlin, and visit a part of it on special occasions. They could see the 
execution block and the huge space laid out by Ivan the Terrible, where 
thousands of Russians bled this life away at the behest of a crul govern- 
ment. 

Or they could stand before the St. Saveur cathedral, a noble structure of 
solid marble with glorious murals within to remind the Slavic people of 
their unconquerable resistance to the great Napoleon and of his disastrous 
retreat from their beloved' Moscow. 

They cannot be blamed for coming out of Moscow convinced that the 
heart of the Slavic people is not in this Bolshevik class hatred and class 
dictatorship stuff of Lenin and Trotsky; equally convinced that the heart 
of the Russian people is not unfearful of the attempted return of the old 
royalist bureaucrats to their baleful power, and convinced that the heart 
of this great, courteous, patient, longsuffering Slavic people is groping 

286 



1 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

for expression of self-government, and that America is their ideal — a hazy 
ideal and one that they aspire toward only in general outlines. Their 
ultimate self-government may not take the shape of American constitutional- 
ism, but Russian self-government must in time come out of the very wrack 
of foreign and internecine war. And every American soldier who fought 
the Bolshevik Russian in arms or stood on the battle line beside the Arch- 
angel Republic anti-Bolshevik Russian, might join these returned captives 
from Bolshevikdom in wishing that there may soon come peace to that 
land, and that they may develop self-government. 

"We finally received our release. We had known of the liberation of 
Mr. Arnold and several of our North Russian comrades and had been hop- 
ing for our turn to come. Mr. Frank Taylor, an Associated Press cor- 
respondent, was helpful to us, declaring to the Bolshevik rulers that Amer- 
ican troops were withdrawing from Archangel. We had been faithful 
(sic) to the lectures, for a purpose of dissimulation, and the Red fanatics 
really thought we were converted to the silly stuff called bolshevism. It was 
plain to us also that they were playing for recognition of their government 
by the United States. So we were given passports for Finland. The 
propaganda did not deceive us. 

"At the border a suspicious sailor on guard searched us. He turned 
many back to Petrograd. The train pulled back carrying four hundred 
women and children and babies disappointed at the very door to freedom, 
weeping, penniless, and starving, starting back into Russia all to suit the 
whim of an ignorant under officer. Under the influence of flattery he 
softened toward us and after robbing us of everything that had been pro- 
vided us by our friends for the journey, taking even the official papers sent 
by the Bolshevik government to our government which we were to deliver 
to American representatives in Finland, he let us go. 

"After he let us go we saw the soldiers in the house grabbing for the 
American money which Mr. Taylor had given us. They had not thought it 
worth while to take the Russian roubles away from us. Of course they were 
of no value to us in Finland. After a two kilometer walk, carrying a sick 
English soldier with us, my three comrades and I reached the little bridge 
that gave us our freedom." — By Sgt. Glenn W. Leitsell, Co. M, 339th Inf. 



281 



XXXVIII 

Military Decorations 

In the North Russian Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki, American officers 
and men fought at one time or another under the field standards of four 
nations, American, British, French, and (North) Russian. And for their 
valor and greatly meritorious conduct, mostly over and beyond the call 
of duty, many soldiers were highly commended by their field officers, Amer- 
ican, French, British, and Russian, in their reports to higher military author- 
ities. Many, but not all, of these officers and soldiers were later cited in 
orders and awarded decorations. Not every deserving man received a cita- 
tion. That is the luck of war. 

It was a matter of keen regret to the British Commanding General that 
he was so hedged by orders from England that his generous policy of 
awarding decorations to American soldiers was abruptly ended in mid-winter 
when it became apparent that the United States would not continue the 
campaign against the Bolsheviki but would withdraw American troops at 
the earliest possible moment. 

The Russian military authorities were eager to show their appreciation 
of their American soldier allies, but due to the indifference of Colonel 
Stewart to this not many soldiers were decorated with Russian old army 
decorations. 

The French decorations were probably the sincerest marks of esteem 
and admiration. They were bestowed by French officers who were close 
to the doughboy in the field. And they are prized as tokens of the affection 
of the French for Americans. 

In speaking of American decorations we can hardly write without heat. 
The doughboy did not get his just deserts. And he, without doubt, is cor- 
rect in placing the blame for the neglect at the door of the American com- 
manding officer, Colonel Stewart. Men and officers who died heroically up 
there in that North Russian campaign, and others who carry wound scars, 
and yet others who performed valiantly in that desperate campaign, went 
unrewarded. 

AMERICAN DECORATIONS 
Distinguished Service Cross 

Bugler James F. Revels, "I" Co., Sgt. Cornelius T. Mahoney, "K" 

339th Inf., for gallantry in action, Co., 339th Inf., for gallantry in 

Sept. 16th, 1918, Obozerskaya, Rus- action, October 16th, 1918, Kodish, 

sia. Russia. 

Lieut. Charles F. Chappel, "K" Corp. Robert M. Pratt, "M" Co., 

Co., 339th Inf., for gallantry in 339th Inf., for gallantry in action, 

action, Sept. 27th, 1918, Kodish, October 17th, 1918, Verst 445, near 

Russia. (Citation posthumous.) Emtsa, Russia. 

Sgt. Mathew G. Grahek, "M" Co., Pvt. Victor Stier, "A" Co., 339th 

339th Inf., for gallantry in action. Inf., for gallantry in action, Janu- 

Sept, 29th, 1918, at Verst 458, ary 19th, 1919, Ust Padenga, Rus- 

Obozerskaya, Russia. sia. (Citation posthumous.) 

283 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 



Distinguished Service Cross 



PvT. Lawrence B. Kilroy, 337th 
Ambulance Company, for gallantry 
in action, Kodish, Russia. 

PvT. Hubert C. Paul, 337th Ambu- 
lance Company, for gallantry in 
action, Kodish, Russia. 

Lieut. Clifford F. Phillips, "H" 
Co., 339th Inf., for gallantry in 
action, April 2nd, 1919, near Bol- 
sheozerki. (Citation posthumous.) 

Corp. Theodore Sieloff, "I" Co., 
339th Inf., for gallantry in action, 
Nov. 4th, 1918, at Verst 445, near 
Emtsa, Russia. 



PvT. Clarence H. Zech, 337th Am- 
bulance Company, for gallantry in 
action, Kodish, Russia. 

Corp. William H. Russell, "M" Co., 
339th Inf., for gallantry in action, 
April 1st, 1919, near Bolsheozerki, 
Russia. (Citation posthumous.) 

PvT. Chester H. Everhard, 337th 
Ambulance Company, for gallantry 
in action, April 2nd, 1919, near 
Bolsheozerki, Russia. 

Lieut. Howard H. Pellegrom, "H" 
Co., 339th Inf., for gallantry in ac- 
tion, April 2nd, 1919, near Bol- 
sheozerki, Russia. 



FRENCH DECORATIONS 

Legion of Honor 
Major J. Brooks Nichols, 339th Inf. Col. George E. Stewart, 339th Inf. 

Croix de Guerre 



PvT. Walter Streit, "M" Co. 
Sgt. Mathew G. Grahek, "M" Co. 
PvT, James Driscoll, "M.G." Co. 
PvT. Clarence A. Miller, "M" Co. 
PvT. Arthur Frank, "M.G." Co. 
PvT. Leo R. Ellis, "I" Co. 
Lieut. James R. Donovan, "M" Co. 

339th Inf. 
Sgt. Frank Getzloff, "M" Co. 
Corp. C. A. Grobbell, "I" Co. 
Lieut. George W. Stoner, "M" Co., 

339th Inf. 
PvT. John H. Rompinen, "M" Co. 
PvT. Alfred Fuller, "K" Co. 
Major Michael J. Donoghue, 339th 

Inf. 
Lieut. Clarence J. Primm, "M" Co., 

339th Inf. 
Lieut. Dwight Fistler, "I" Co., 

339th Inf. 
Sgt. Charles Hebner, "M" Co. 
PvT. Otto Georgia, "K" Co. 
Lieut. Percival L. Smith, "Hq." Co., 

339th Inf. 
Lieut. Wesley K. Wright, "M" Co., 

339th Inf. 
Lieut. Gilbert T. Shillson, "K" Co., 

339th Inf. 
Sgt. Harvey B. Peterson, "M" Co. 
PvT. Herman A. Soder, "I" Co. 
Pvt. Thomas McElroy, "M" Co. 
Corp. Benjamin Jondro, "M" Co. 
Pvt. Tobias LePlant, "K" Co. 
Pvt. Frank Rank, "I" Co. 



Sgt. Charles V. Riha, "M" Co. 
Lieut. Robert J. Wieczorek, "M" 

Co., 339th Inf. 
Lieut. Woodhull Spitler, "M.G." 

Co., 339th Inf. 
Sgt. John P. Gray, "M" Co. 
Capt. Joseph Rosenfeld, 337th Amb. 
Sgt. Jacob Kantrowitz, "M" Co. 
Lieut. John J. Baker, "E" Co., 339th 

Inf. 
Pvt. Clyde Peterson, "K" Co. 
Corp. Theodore H. Sieloff, "I" Co. 
Pvt. Ray Lawrence, "M" Co. 
Capt. Horatio G. Win slow, "I" Co., 

339th Inf. 
Corp. John C. Smolinski, "I" Co. 
Pvt. John Kukoris, "I" Co. 
Lieut. Lewis E. Jahns, "K" Co., 

339th Inf. 
Major J. Brooks Nichols, 339th Inf., 

Commanding officer Allied troops, 

Railway Detachment. 
Pvt. Samuel H. Darrah, "K" Co. 
Lieut. Charles B. Ryan, "K" Co., 

339th Inf. 
Corp. Frank L. O'Connor, "M" Co. 
Mr. Frank Olm stead, Y. M. C. A. 
Pvt. Oscar Lighter, "M" Co. 
Pvt. Alfred Starikoff, "M'' Co. 
Corp. Robert M. Pratt, "M" Co. 
Pvt. Ernest P. Rouleau, "M" Co. 
Capt. Joel R. Moore, "M" C9., 339th 

Inf. (with silver star, divisional ci- 
tation). 



284 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

BRITISH DECORATIONS 
Distinguished Service Order 



Major J. Brooks Nichols, 339th Inf. 

Commanding ofScer American and Al- 
lied troops, Railway Detachment, fall 
offensive and winter and spring defen- 
sive campaigns of Vologda Force. 

Major Michael J. Donoghue, 339th 
Inf. 

Commanding officer American and Al- 
lied troops, Kodish offensive in fall 
and winter defensive campaigns of the 
Seletskoe • Detachment of Vologda 
Force. 



Captain Robert P. Boyd, "B" Co., 
339th Inf. 

Commanding officer American and Al- 
lied troops left bank of Dvina, fall 
offensive and winter defensive cam- 
paigns' of Dvina-Kotlas Force. 

Lieut.- Col. P. S. Morris, Jr., 310th 
Engineers. 

Chief Engineer A. E. F., North Russia, 
during fall offensive and winter and 
spring campaigns. 



Military Cross 
Capt. Otto A. Odjard, Commanding Lieut. Charles B. Ryan, "K" Co., 



Officer "A" Co., 339th Inf. 
Lieut. Albert M. Smith, "B" Co., 

339th Inf. 
Lieut. Lawrence P. Keith, "M.G." 

Co. 339th Inf. 
Lieut. Gordon B. Reese, "I" Co., 

339th Inf. 
Lieut. Harry S. Steele, "C" Co., 

339th Inf. 
Lieut. W. C. Giffels, "A" Co., 810th 

Engrs. 
Lieut. Harry M. Dennis, "B" Co. 

339th Inf. 



339th Inf. 

Lieut. H. T. Ketcham, "H" Co., 
339th Inf. 

Lieut. Harry J. Costello, "M.G." 
Co., 339th Inf. (received his medal 
from the hand of the Prince of 
Wales, in Washington, D. C.) 

Major Clare S. McArdle, Command- 
ing officer 1st Battalion 310th 
Engrs. 

Lieut. Edwin J, Stephenson, "A" 
Co., 310th Engrs. 

Lieut. B. A. Burns, "A" Co., 310th 
Engrs. 



Lieut John A. Commons, "K" Co., Capt. W. O. Axtell. "B" Co 310th 

339th Inf. Engrs. 

Lieut. H. D. McPhail, "A" Co., Lieut. E. W. Legier, "C" Co 310th 

339th Inf. Engrs. 

Distinguished Conduct Medal 
Sgt. Mathew G. Grahek, "M" Co., Corp. George R. Yohe, Signal Pla- 
toon, "Hq." Co., 339th Inf. 



339th Inf. 
Sgt. F. W. Wolfe, "K" Co., 839th 

Inf. 
Sgt. G. M. Walker, "K" Co., 339th 

Inf. 
Sgt. Chas. J. Hayden, "I" Co., 

339th Inf. 
Corp. J. C. Downs, "B" Co., 339th 

Inf. 
Sgt. a. V. Tibbals, "A" Co., 310th 

Engrs. 



Pvt. Walter A. Springsteen, Signal 
Platoon, "Hq." Co., 339th Inf. 

Corp. James Morrow, "B" Co., 339th 
Inf. 

Sgt. Peter Csatlos, "A" Co., 810th 

Engrs. 
Sgt. Floyd A. Wallace, "B" Co., 

339th Inf. 



Military Medal 

Sgt. Carl W. Venable, "L" Co., Sgt. E. P. Trombley, "A" Co., 839th 

339th Inf. Inf. 

Pvt. 1st Class James W. Driscoll, Corp. H. T. Danielson, "A" Co., 

"M.G." Co., 389th Inf. 339th Inf. 

Sgt. Michael J. Kenney, "K" Co., Corp. J. Franczac, "A" Co., 339th 

339th Inf. Inf. 

Sgt. E. J. Herman, "A" Co., 810th Bugler C. J. Campus, "A" Co., 839th 

Engrs. Inf. 

Corp. J. S. Manderfield, "A" Co., Mech. A. J. Horn, "A" Co., 339th 

810th Engrs. Inf. 



285 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

Military Medal 

Sgt. J. A. Nees, "A" Co., 339th Inf. Corp. W. C. Butz, "B" Co., 310th 

Sgt. Arnold W. Nolf, "A" Co., 310th Engrs. 

Engrs. Corp. F. W. Wilkie, "K" Co., 339th 

Sgt. H. H. Hamilton, "A" Co., 310th Inf. 

Engrs. Sgt, L. Bartels, "K" Co., 339th Inf. 

^YVnPu^^T?^'' ^- BeRGSTROM, "A" Co., Corp. J. Steyskal, "K" Co., 339th 

310th Engrs. jj^£ 

Pvt. Russell F. McGuire, "A" Co., ^ -c- tt tt , „ <<t^., n oon^u 

310th Engrs. P^'f Helman, 'K' Co., 339th 

Pvt. Michael Kowalski, "H" Co., ^ " ' ,, ^ r. 

339th Inf Corp. William C. Shaughnessey, 

Sgt. E. W.' Pausch, "C" Co., 339th Signal Platoon, "Hq." Co., 339th 

Inf. I"f- 

Sgt. John Benson, "C" Co., 310th Pvt. Louis L. Hopkins, "Hq." Co., 

Engrs. 339th Inf. 

Sgt. Silver K. Parish, "B" Co., 339th Pvt. Charles E. Garrett, "Hq." Co., 

Inf. 339th Inf. 

Pvt. Charles Bell, "B" Co., 339th Pvt. Guy Hinman, "Hq." Co., 339th 

Inf. Inf. 

Pvt. Joseph Edyinson, "B" Co., Pvt. James R. Waggener, "Hq." Co., 

339th Inf. 339th Inf. 

Sgt. L. E. Stover, "B" Co., 310th Pvt. Clarence A. Miller, "M" Co., 

Engrs. 339th Inf. 

Meritorious Service Medal 

Sgt. Ewald T. Billeau Pvt. A. H. Dittberner Sgt. L. S. Schneider 
Sgt. Delbert Kratz 1st. Sgt. V. B. Rogers Sgt. F. W. Yates 

Pvt. Jerry Daubek Corp. A. N. Erickson 
All of "A" Company, 310th Engineers 

RUSSIAN DECORATIONS 

St. Vladimir with Swords and Ribbons 

Rear-Admiral Newton A. McCully, Major J. Brooks Nichols, 339th Inf. 

Commanding U. S. Naval Forces. Col. James A. Ruggles, Chief of 

Major Michael J. Donoghue, 339th American Military Mission, Mili- 

Inf. tary Attache to Embassy in Russia. 

5"^ Anne "ninth Swords 

Capt. Joel R. Moore, "M" Co., 339th Lieut. F. B. Little, Med. Corps, 

Inf. 339th Inf. 

Lieut. J. R. Donovan^ "M" Co., Lieut. W. C. Giffells, "A" Co., 310th 

339th Inf Engrs. 

T A 11 r o «Tiii /- Lieut. E. W. Legier, "C" Co., 310th 

Lieut. Albert M. Smith, "B Co., Eners 

339th Inf. , Lieut. Harry J. Costello, "M.G." 

Lieut. Gordon B, Reese, "I" Co., Co., 339th Inf. 

339th Inf. Capt. Eugene Prince, Military Mis- 
Lieut. Harry S. Steele, "C" Co., ^s'°"- ^ ^ ,, ,,... 

339th Inf Capt. Hugh S. Martin, Military 

^'oo^'Iu^T^^ ^- ^"^0^^' "^" C°-' CafJ' J°A. Hartzfeld, Military Mis- 

339th Inf. sion 

Lieut. Clarence J. Primm, "M" Co., Lieut. Sergius M. Riis, Naval At- 

339th Ir' tache to Embassy. 



286 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 



St. Stanislaus 



Capt. Otto A. Odjarb, "A" Co., 339th 

Inf. 
Capt. Robert P. Boyd, "B" Co., 339th 

Inf. 
Major C. S. McArdle, 310th Engrs. 
Capt. John J. Conway, "G" Co., 

339th Inf. 
Lieut. Lawrence P. Keith, "Hq." 

Co., 339th Inf. 
Lieut. Wesley K. Wright, "M" Co., 

339th Inf. 
Lieut. John A. Commons, "K" Co., 

339th Inf. 
Lieut. H. T. Ketcham, "H" Co., 

339th Inf. 
Lieut. Harry M. Dennis, "B" Co., 

339th Inf. 
Lieut. Charles B. Ryan, "K" Co., 

339th Inf. 
Lieut. H. D. McPhail, "A" Co., 

339th Inf. 



Capt. William Knight, 310th Engrs. 

Lieut. Robert J. Wieczorek, "M" 
Co., 339th Inf. 

Lieut. Dwight Fistler, "I" Co., 
339th Inf. 

Lieut. B. A. Burns, "A" Co., 310th 
Engrs. 

Lieut. A. W. Kliefoth, Military- 
Mission. 

Lieut. M. B. Rogers, Mihtary Mis- 
sion. 

Lieut. E. L. Packer, Military Mis- 
sion. 

Major D. O. Lively, American Red 
Cross. 

Capt. Roger Lewis, American Red 
Cross. 

Lieut. Fred Mason, American Red 
Cross. 

Lieut. George Pollats, American 
Red Cross. 



PvT. John C. Adams 
PvT. Harrison Bush 
Sgt. Joseph Curry 
PvT. Fred DeLaney 
1ST. Sgt. W. Dundon 
Bugler George Garton 
Sgt. M. G. Grahek 
PvT. Geo. Hanrahan 
All of "M" Company, 
Frank Olmstead, Y. M 



Cross of St. George 

Sgt. Chas. A. Hebner 
Corp. Fred Hodges 
Sgt. Wm. R. Huston 
Sgt. Jacob Kantrowitz 
Corp. Wm. Nieman 
Corp. F. L. O'Connor 
Sgt. Chas. W. Page 
Corp. Robt. M. Pratt 

339th Infantry. Also Mr. 

. C. A. 



Sgt. Chas. V. Riha 
Corp. F. J. Romanski 
PvT. John Rompinen 
Corp. Jos. Ryduchowski 
PvT. Leo Schwabe 
Sgt. Norman Zapfe 
Corp. W. Zimmerman 
Ernest Rand, and Mr. 



St. Anne Silver Medal 
Corporal Walter J. Picard, "M" Company, 339th Inf. 

St. Stanislaus Silver Medal 

Pvt. Harold Metcalfe Pvt. Ernest Rouleau Pvt. Frank Stepnavski 
Cook Joseph Pavlin Cook Theodore Zech 

All of "M" Company, 339th Infantry 



387 




American Cemetery in Archangel 




Soldiers and Sailors of Six Nations Reference Dead 




Sailors Parade on Memorial Day, Archangel 




Through Ice Floes in Arctic Homeward-Bound 




Out of White Sea into Arctic Under Midnight Sun 



RCZANSKET 



XXXIX 

HoMEWAED Bound 

"At The Earliest Possible Date" — ^Work Of Detroit's Own Welfare 
Association — "Getting The Troops Out Of Russia" — We Assemble 
At Economia — Delousers And Ball Games — War Mascots — ^War 
Brides— Remarkable Memorial Day Service In American Military 
Cemetery In Archangel — Tribute To Our Comrades Who Could Not 
Go Home — Our Honored Dead. 

"At the earliest possible moment" was the date set by the War Department 
for the withdrawal of the troops from Russia. This was the promise made 
the American people during the ice-bound winter, the promise made more 
particularly to appease vigorous protests of "The Detroit's Own Welfare 
Association," which under the leadership' of Mr. D. P. Stafford, had been 
untiring in its efforts to move the hand of the War Department. Congress- 
men Doremus and Nichols and Townsend had also been very active in "getting 
the Americans out of North Russia." 

To us wearied veterans of that strange war, the nine months of guerrilla 
war, always strenuous and at times taking oil large proportions, — to us the 
"earliest possible moment" could not arrive a minute too soon. We had 
fought a grim fight against terrible odds, we had toiled to make the defenses 
more and more impregnable so that those who relieved us might not be 
handicapped as we had been. We hated to be thought of as quitters, we suf- 
fered under the reproachful eyes of newly arriving veteran Scots and Tom- 
mies who had been mendaciously deceived into thinking we were quitters. 
We suffered from the thought that the distortion, exaggeration and partisan 
outcry at home was making use of half-statements of returned comrades or 
half-statements from uncensored letters, in such a way as to make us appear 
cry-babies and quitters. But down in our hearts we were conscious that 
our record, our morale, our patriotism were sound. We believed we were 
entitled to a speedy getaway for home. We accepted the promise with pleas- 
ure. We felt friendly toward the Detroit's Own Welfare Association for 
its efforts and the efforts of others. We could have wished that there had 
not been so much excitement of needless fears and incitement of useless 
outcry. It cost us hard earned money to cable home assurances to our 
loved ones that we were well and safe, so that they need not believe the wild 
tales that we were sleeping in water forty below zero, or thawing out the 
cows before we milked them, or simply starving to death. We could have 
wished that returned comrades who tried to tell the real facts and allay need- 
less fears — the actual facts were damnable enough — might not have been 
treated as shamefully as some were by a populace fooled by a mixed prop- 
aganda that was a strange combination, as it appears to us now, of earnest, 

289 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 
«, 

sympathetic attempts to do something for "Detroit's Own," of bitter partisan 
invective, and of insidious pro-bolshevism. 

For the cordial vifelcome home which was given to the Polar Bear veterans 
in July, our heartfelt appreciation is due. Veterans who marched behind 
Major J. Brooks Nichols between solid crowds of cheering home-folks on 
July 4th at Belle Isle could not help feeling that the city of Detroit was 
proud of the record of the men who had weathered that awful campaign. 
It was a greeting that we had not dreamed of those days away up there in 
the northland when we were watching the snow and ice melt and waiting 
news of the approach of troopships. 

At Economia we assembled for the purpose of preparing for our voyage 
home. To the silt-sawdust island doughboys came from the various fronts. 
By rail from Obozerskaya and Bolsheozerki, by barge from Beresnik and 
Kholmogori and Onega, came the veterans of this late side show of the 
great world war. With them they had their mascots and their War Brides, 
their trophies and curios, their hopeful good humor and healthy play spirit. 

Who will not recall with pleasure the white canvass camp we made on 
the "policed-up'' sawdust field. Did soldiers ever police quite so willingly 
as they did there on the improvised baseball diamond, where "M" Company 
won the championship and the duffle-bagful of roubles when the first detach- 
ment of the 339th was delousing and turning over Russian equipment, and 
"F" Company won the port belt and roubles in the series played while the 
remainder of the Polar Bears were getting ready to sail. 

Who will forget the day that the Cruiser "Des Moines" steamed in from 
the Arctic. Every doughboy on the island rushed to the Dvina's edge. They 
stood in great silent throat-aching groups, looking with blurred eyes at the 
colors that grandly flew to the breeze. And then as the jackies gave them a 
cheer those olive drab boys answered till their throats were hoarse. That 
night they sat long in their tents — it was not dusk even at midnight, and 
talked of home. A day or so later they spied from the fire-house tower 
vessels that seemed to be jammed in a polar ice floe which a north wind 
crowded into the throat of the White Sea. Then to our joy a day or two 
later came the three transports, the long deferred hope of a homeward 
voyage. 

Everyone was merry those days. Even the daily practice march with full- 
pack ordered by Colonel Stewart, five miles round and round on the rough 
board walks of the sawdust port, was taken with good humor. Preparations 
for departure included arrangements for carrying away our brides and mas- 
cots. 

Here and there in the Economia embarkation camp those days and night- 
less nights in early June many a secret conclave of doughboys was held to 
devise ways and means of getting their Russian mascots aboard ship. Of 
these boys and youths they had become fond. They wanted to see them in 
"civvies" in America and the mascots were anxiously waiting the outcome 
at the gangplank. 

At Chamova one winter night a little twelve-year old Russian boy wan- 
dered into the "B" Company cook's quarters where he was fed and given a. 

290 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

blanket to sleep on. Welz, the cook, mothered him and taught him to open 
bully cans and speak Amerikanski. This incident had its counterpart every- 
where. At Obozerskaya "M" Company picked up a boy whose father and 
mother had been carried off by the Bolsheviks. He and his pony and watex- 
barrel cart became part of the company. At Pinega the "G" Company boys 
adopted a former Russian Army youth who for weeks was the only man 
who could handle their single Colt machine gun. In trying to get him on 
board the "Von Steuben" in Brest — it had been simple in Economia — they got 
their commanding officer into trouble. Lt. Birkett was arrested, compelled 
to remain at Brest but later released and permitted to bring the youth to 
America with him where he lives in Wisconsin. And out on a ranch in 
Wyoming a Russian boy who unofficially enlisted with the American dough- 
boys to fight for his Archangel state is now learning to ride the American 
range with Lt. Smith. Major Donoghue's "little sergeant" is in America 
too and goes to school and his Massachusetts school teacher calls him 
Michael Donoghue. And others came too. 

In marked contrast to these passengers who came with the veterans from 
North Russia via Brest, which they remember for its Bokoo Eats and its 
lightning equipment-exchange mill, is the story of one of the fifty general 
prisoners whom they guarded on the "Von Steuben." One of them was a bad 
man, since become notorious. He was missing as the ship dropped anchor 
that night in the dark harbor. It was feared by the "second looie" and 
worried old sergeant that; the man was trying to make an escape. When 
they found him feigning slumber under a life boat on a forbidden deck 
they chose opposite sides of the life boat and kicked him fervently, first 
from one side then the other till he was submissive. The name of the man 
at that time meant little to them — it was Lt. Smith. But a few days after- 
ward they could have kicked themselves for letting Smith off so easy, for 
the press was full of the stories of the brutalities of "Hardboiled" Smith. 
Lt. Wright and Sergeant Gray are not yearning to do many events of the 
Russian campaign over but they would like to have that little event of the 
homeward bound voyage to do over so they could give complete justice to 
"Hardboiled" Smith. 

In contrast with the stories of brutal prison camps of the World War we 
like to think of our buddies making their best of hardships and trials in 
North Russia. We have asked two well-known members of the expedition 
to contribute reminiscences printed below. 

"As ithers see us" is here shown by extract from a letter by a Red Cross 
man who saw doughboys as even our Colonel commanding did not see. This 
Red Cross officer, Major Williams, of Baltimore, saw doughboys on every 
front and sector of the far-extended battle and blockhouse line. He may 
speak with ample knowledge of conditions. In part he writes : 

"Americans, as a rule, are more popular in Russia than any other national- 
ity. The American soldier in North Russia by his sympathetic treatment of 
the villagers, his ability to mix and mingle in a homey fashion with the 
Russian peasants in their family life and daily toil, and particularly the 

291 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

American soldier's love of the little Russian children, and the astonishing 
affection displayed by Russian children toward the Americans furnishes one 
of the most illuminating examples of what was and may be accomplished 
through measures of peaceful intercourse. The American soldier demon- 
strated in North Russia that he is a born mixer. 

"I could write a book, giving concrete examples coming under my ob- 
servation, from voluminous notes in my possession. As I dictate this, there 
is a vision of an American soldier who stopped by my sled, at some remote 
village in a trackless forest, and urged me to visit with him a starving fam- 
ily. This soldier, from his own rations, was helping to feed thirteen Rus- 
sians, and his joy was as great as theirs when the Red Cross came to their 
relief." 

The next contribution is from the pen of a man who, born in Kiev, Russia, 
had in youth seen the Czar's old army,, who had served years in the U, S. 
army after coming to America, who was one of the finest soldiers afid best 
known men in the North Russian expedition. 

"It is almost an axiom with the regular army of our own country and 
those of foreign nations, that soldier and discipline are synonymous. Mean- 
ing thereby the blind discipline of the Prussian type. 

"That such an axiom is entirely wrong has been shown us by the National 
Army. No one will affirm that the new-born army was a model to pass 
inspection even before our own High Moguls of the regular army. And yet, 
what splendid success has that sneered at, 'undisciplined,' army achieved. 

"And where is the cause of its success? The 'Uneducatedness' in the 
sense of the regular army. The American citizen in a soldier uniform acted 
like a free human being, possessing initiative, self-reliance, and confidence, 
which qualities are entirely subdued by the so called education of a soldier. 
It is not the proper salute or clicking of the heels that makes the good 
soldier, but the spirit of the man and his character. And these latter quali- 
ties has possessed our national army. Fresh from civilian life with all the 
liberty-loving tendencies, our boys have thrown themselves into the fight 
on their own accord, once they realized the necessity of it. The whip of 
discipline could never accomplish so much as the conscience of necessity. 
And that is what the national army possessed. And that is the cause of its 
success. And therefore I love it. 

"So long as the United States remains a free country, there is no danger 
for the American people. That spirit which has manifested itself in the 
National Army is capable to accomplish everything. It is the free institu- 
tions of the country that brought us victory, not the so called 'education' 
gotten in the barracks. 

"I admired the national army man in fight, because I loved him as a 
citizen. And unless he changes as a citizen, he will not change as a fighter. 
To me the citizen and soldier are synonymous. A good citizen makes a good 
soldier, and vice versa. Let the American citizen remain as free-loving and 
self-reliant as he is now, and he will make one of the best soldiers in the 
world. Let him lose that freedom loving spirit, and he will have to be 
Prussianized. 

293 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

"I have my greatest respect for the national army man, because I have 
seen him at his best. In the moments of gravest danger he has exhibited 
that courage which is only inborn in a free man. And when I saw that 
courage, I said, He does not need any 'education.' Let him remain a free 
man, and God help those who will try to take away his freedom." 

SGT. J. KANT, Co. "M" 339th Inf. 

From distant Morjagorskaya, hundreds of versts, walked a bright-eyed 
Slavic village school teacher to say goodbye to her doughboy friend who 
was soon to sail for home. But to her great joy and reward, Nina Rozova 
found that her lover, George Geren, of Detroit, had found a way to make 
her his wife at once. One certain sympathetic American Consul, Mr. Shelby 
Strother„ had told George he would help him get his bride to America if 
he wanted to marry the pretty teacher. 

Blessings on that warm-hearted Consul. He helped eight of the boys to 
bring away their brides. In this volume is a picture of a doughboy -b oris hna 
wedding party, Joe Chinzi and Elena Farizy. On a boat from Brest to 
Hoboken, among one hundred sixty-seven war brides from France, Belgium, 
England and Russia, Elena was voted third highest in the judges' beauty 
list And John Karouch saw his Russian bride, Alexandra Kadrina, take 
the first beauty prize. The writer well remembers the beautiful young Rus- 
sian woman of Archangel who wore mourning for an American corporal 
and went to see her former lover's comrades go away on the tug for the 
last time. They had been to the cemetery and they looked respectfully and 
affectionately at her for they knew it was her hand that had made the cor- 
poral's grave there in the American cemetery in Archangel the one most 
marked by evidences of loving care. 

One of the last duties of the veterans of this campaign was the paying 
of honors to their dead comrades in the American cemetery which Ambas- 
sador Francis had purchased for our dead. This was without doubt the most 
remarkable Memorial Day service in American history. From The American 
Sentinel is taken the following account : 

"American Memorial Day was celebrated at Archangel yesterday. Headed 
by the American Band, a company of American troops, and detachments of 
the U. S. Navy, Russian troops, Russian Navy, British troops, British Navy, 
French troops, French Navy, Italian and Polish troops, formed in parade 
at Sabornaya at ten o'clock in the morning and marched to the cemetery. 

"Here a short memorial service was held. Brief addresses were delivered 
by General Richardson, General Miller, Charge D'Affaires Poole, and General 
Ironside. 

"In his introductory address General Richardson said : 

" 'Fellow Soldiers of America and Allied Nations : We are assembled 
here on the soil of a great Ally and a traditional friend of our country, to 
do what honor we may to the memory of America's dead here buried, who 
responded to their country's call in the time of her need and have laid down 
their lives in her defense. Throughout the world wherever may be found 
American soldiers or civilians, are gathered others today for the fulfillment 
of this sacred and loving duty, I ask you to permit your thought to dwell 

293 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

at this time with deep reverence upon the fact that no higher honor can 
come to a soldier than belongs to those who have made this supreme sacri- 
fice, and whose bodies lie here before us, but whose spirits, we trust, are 
with us.' 

"Before introducing General Miller, General Richardson thanked the 
Allied representatives for their participation in the celebration of Memorial 
Day. 

"Mr. Poole said: 

" 'This day was first instituted in memory of those who fell in the Amer- 
ican Civil War. It became the custom to place flowers on the graves of 
soldiers and strew flowers on the water in memory of the sailor dead, mark- 
ing in this way one day in each year when the survivors of the war might 
join with a later generation to revere the memory of those who had made 
for the common good the supreme sacrifice of life. For Americans it is 
an impressive thought that we are renewing this consecration today in 
Russia, in the midst of a civic struggle which recalls the deep trials of our 
own past and which is, moreover, inextricably bound up with the World 
War which has been our common burden. 

" 'This war, which was begun to put down imperial aggression upon the 
political liberties of certain peoples, has evolved into a profound social up- 
heaval, touching the most remote countries. We cannot yet see definitely 
what the results of its later developments will be, but already there lies 
before forward looking men the bright prospect of peace and justice and 
liberty throughout the world such as we recently dared hope for only within 
the narrow confines of particular countries. To the soldiers of the great 
war — inspired from the outset by a dim foresight of this stupendous result — 
we now pay honor; and in particular, to the dead whose graves are before 
us. 

" 'These men, like their comrades elsewhere in the most endless line of 
battle, have struck their blow against the common enemy. They have had 
the added privilege of assisting in the most tragic, and at the same time the 
most hopeful, upheaval for which the war has been the occasion. Autocracy 
in Russia is gone. A new democracy is in the struggle of its birth. The 
graves before us are tangible evidence of the deep and sympathetic concern 
of the older democracies. These men have given their lives to help Russia. 
They have labored in an enterprise which is a forecast of a new order in 
the world's affairs and have made of it a prophecy of success. Here within 
this restricted northern area there has been an acid test of the practicability 
of co-operation among nations for the attainment of common ends. Nowhere 
could material and moral conditions have been more difiicult than we have 
seen them these past months ; under no circumstances could differences in 
national temperament or the frailties and shortcomings of individuals be 
brought into stronger relief. Yet the winter of our initial difficulties is given 
way to a summer of maturing success. Co-operation begun in the most hap- 
hazard fashion has developed after a few months of mutual adjustment into 
concerted and harmonious action. It seems to me that herein lies striking 
proof of the generous spirit of modern international intercourse and proof 



294 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

of the most practical kind that, as nations succeed to doing away with war, 
they will be able tO' apply the energies thus released to common action in 
the beneficent field of world wide social and political betterment. If this 
ideal is to be measurably attained, as I believe it is, these men have indeed 
made their sacrifice to a great cause. They have given their lives to the 
progress of civilization and their memory shall be cherished as long as civil- 
ization lasts.' 

"The Northern Morning, a Russian daily of Archangel, reported on the 
Memorial Day Exercises as follows : 

" 'In memory of the fallen during the Civil War in America, on the 
initiative of President Lincoln, the 30th of May was fixed as a day to remem- 
ber the fallen heroes. In this year our American friends have to pass this 
day far from their country, America, in our cold northland, between the 
graves of those who are dear not only to our friends, Allies, but also to us 
Russians ; the sacred graves beneath which are concealed those who, far from 
their own country, gave away their lives to save us. These are now sacred 
and dear places, and the day of the thirtieth of May as a day of memorial 
to them will always be to us a day of mourning. This day will not be for- 
gotten in the Russian soul. It has to be kept in memory as long as the name 
of Russian manhood exists. 

" 'After the speeches a military salute was fired. A heart-breaking call 
of the trumpet over the graves of the fallen sounded the mourning notes. 
Those who attended the meeting will never forget this moment of the bugle 
call. The signal as it broke forth filled the air with sorrowness and grief, as 
if it called the whole world to bow before those who, loving their neighbors, 
without hesitation gave their lives away for the sacred cause of humanity.' 
"Honor be to the fallen : blessings and eternal rest to those protectors of 
humanity who gave their lives away for the achievement of justice and 
right. Sleep quietly now, sons of liberty and light. You won before the 
world never-fading honor and eternal glory." 

And so at last came the day to sail. Wfe were going out. No Americans 
were coming to take our place. We were going to leave the "show" in the 
hands of the British — who themselves were to give it up before fall. The 
derided Bolshevik bands of brigands whom we had set out to chase to 
Vologda and Kotlas, had developed into a well-disciplined, well-equipped 
fighting organization that responded to the will of Leon Trotsky. Although 
we had seen an Archangel State military force also develop behind our lines 
and come on to the active fighting sectors, we knew that Archangel was in 
desperate danger from the Bolshevik Northern Army of Red soldiers. They 
were out there just beyond the fringe of the forest only waiting, perhaps, 
for us to start home. 

We must admit that when we thought of those wound-chevroned Scots 
who had remained on the lines with the new Archangel troops of uncertain 
morale and recalled the looks in their eyes, we sensed a trace of bitter in 
our cup of joy. Why if the job had been worth doing at all had it not been 
worth while for our country to do it wholeheartedly with adequate force 
and with determination to see it through to the desired end. We thought of 

295 



THE AiMERICAN EXPEDITION 

the many officers and men who had given their lives in this now abandoned 
cause. And again arose the old question persistent, demanding an answer: 
Why had we come at all. Was it just one of those blunders military-political 
that are bound to happen in every great war? The thought troubled us 
even as we embarked for home. 

That night scene with the lowering sun near midnight gleaming gold 
upon the forest-shaded stretches of the Dvina River and casting its mellow, 
melancholy light upon the wrecked church of a village, is an ineffaceable 
picture of North Russia. For this is our Russia — a church ; a little cluster 
of log houses, encompassed by unending forests of moaning spruce and 
pine; low brooding, sorrowful skies; and over all oppressive stillness, sad, 
profound, mysterious, yet strangely lovable to our memory. 

Near the shell-gashed and mutilated church are two rows of unadorned 
wooden crosses, simple memorials of a soldier burial ground. Come vividly 
back into the scene the winter funerals in that yard of our buddies, brave 
men who, loving life, had been laid away there, having died soldier-like for 
a cause they had only dimly understood. And the crosses now rise up, mute, 
eloquent testimony to the cost of this strange, inexplicable war of North 
Russia. 

We cast off from the dirty quay and steamed out to sea. On the deck 
was many a reminiscent one who looked back bare-headed on the paling 
shores, in his heart a tribute to those who, in the battle field's burial spot 
or in the little Russian churchyards stayed behind while we departed home- 
ward bound. 

This closes our narrative. It is imperfectly told. We could wish we had 
time to add another volume of anecdotes and stories of heroic deeds. For 
errors and omissions we beg the indulgence of our comrades. We trust 
that the main facts have been clearly told. Here by way of further dedi- 
cation of this book to our honored dead, whose names appear at the head 
of our lengthy casualty list of five hundred sixty-three, let us add a few 
simple verses of sentiment, the first two of which were written by "Dad" 
Hillman and the others added on by one of the writers. 



296 



THE HONOR ROLL 

of the 

Amebican Expedition Who Fought Against The 
BoLSHEviKi In North Russia 

1918-1919 



as7 



In Russia's Fields 

(After Flanders Fields) 

In Russia's fields no poppies grow 
There are no crosses row on row 
To mark the places where we lie, 
No larks so gayly singing: fly 
As in the fields of Flanders. 

We are the dead. Not long ago 
We fought beside you in the snow 
And gave our lives, and here we lie 
Though scarcely knowing reason why 
Like those who died in Flanders. 



At Ust Padenga where we fell 
On Railroad, Kodlsh, shot and shell 
We faced, from just as fierce a foe 
As those who sleep where poppies grow, 
Our comrades brave In Flanders. 



In Toulgas woods we scattered sleep, 
Chekuevo and Kitsa's tangles creep 
Across our lonely graves. At night 
The doleful screech owl's dismal flight 
Heart-breaking screams in Russia. 



Near railroad bridge at Four-five-eight, 
And Chamova's woods, our bitter fate 
We met. We fell before the Reds 
Where wolves now howl above our heads 
In far off lonely Russia. 

In Shegovari's desperate fight, 
Vistavka's siege and Seltso's night. 
In Bolsheozerki's hemmed-in wood, 
In Karpogor, till death we stood 

Like they who died in Flanders. 

And some in Archangel are laid 
'Neath rows of crosses Russian-made 
With marker of the Stars and Stripes 
Not minding bugle, drum or pipes 
We sleep, the brave, in Russia. 

And comrades as you gather far away 
In God's own land on some bright day 
And thmk of us who died and rest 
Just tell our folks we did our best 
In far off fields of Russia. 



298 



KILLED IN ACTION 

Agnew, John, Sgt. Co. K Sept. 27, 1918, Belfast, Ireland 

Anderson, Jake C, Pvt. 1st class Co. B Nov. 11, 1918, Cave City, Ky. 

Angove, John P., Pvt. Co. B Nov. 13, 1918, Painesdale, Mich. 

Assire, Myron J., Co. A, 310th Engrs Oct. 26, 1918 

AusLANDER, Floyd R., Pvt. Co. H April 2, 1919, Decker, Mich. 

Austin, Floyd E., Pvt. 1st class Co. E Dec. 30, 1918, Scottsburg, Ind. 

Avery, Harley, Pvt. Co. H Oct. 1, 1918, Lexington, Mich. 

Ballard, Clifford B., Secoiid Lt. M. G. Co Feb. 7, 1919, Cambridge, Mass. 

Berger, Carl G., Wag. Sup. Co Jan. 19, 1919, Detroit. 

Berger, Carl H., Second Lt. Co. E Dec. 31, 1918, Mayville, Wis. 

Boreson, John, Pvt. Co. H, Oct. 1, 1918, Stephenson, Mich. 

Bosel, John J., Corp. Co. C Nov. 29, 1918, Detroit 

Chappel, Charles F., First Lt. Co. K Sept. 27, 1918, Toledo, Ohio 

Cheeney, Roy D., Corp. Co. C Nov. 29, 1918, Pueblo, Colo. 

Christian, Arthur, Pvt. Co. L Oct. 14, 1918, Atlanta, Mich. 

Clark, Joshua A., Pvt. Co. C Feb. 4, 1919, Woodville, Mich. 

Clemens, Raymond C, Pvt. Co. C Nov. 29, 1918, St. Joseph, Mich. 

Cole, Elmer B., Pvt. Co. A Jan. 23, 1919, Hamersluya, Pa. 

Conrad, Rex H., Corp. Co. F Mar. 26, 1919, Ponca, Mich. 

Crook, Alva, Pvt. Co. M April 1, 1919, Lakeview, Mich. 

Cronin, Louis, Pvt. Co. K Oct. 13, 1918, Flushing, Mich. 

Crowe, Bernard C, Sgt. Co. K Dec. 30, 1918, Detroit 

Cuff, Francis W., First Lt. Co. C Nov. 29, 1918, Rio, Wis. 

DbAmicis, Guiseppe, Corp. Co. A Jan. 19, 1919, Detroit 

Dial, Charles O., Mech. Co. M .Mar. 31, 1919, Carlisle, Ind. 

Dyment, Schlioma, Pvt. Co. M Sept. 30, 1918, Detroit 

Ellis, Leo R., Pvt. Co. I Nov. 4, 1918, Chicago, 111. 

Foley, Morris J., Corp. Co. B Sept. 20, 1918, Detroit 

Fuller, Alfred W., Pvt. 1st class Co. K Dec. 30, 1918, Trenton, Mich. 

Gasper, Leo, Pvt. Co. B Nov. 11, 1918, Chesaning, Mich. 

Gauch, Charles D., Pvt. Hq. Co Oct. 1, 1918, Kearney, N. J. 

GoTTSCHALK, MiLTON E., Corp. Co. A. Jan. 22, 1919, Detroit 

Graham, Claus, Pvt. Co. H Oct. 1, 1918, Toledo, Ohio 

Hester, Harley H., Corp. M. G. Co Sept. 27, 1918, Cave City, Ky. 

Kenney, Mjchael J., Sgt. Co. K Dec. 30, 1918, Detroit 

Kenny, Bernapj) F., Corp. Co. A Mar. 9, 1919, Hemlock, Mich. 

KissiCK, Thurman L., Pvt. Co. C. Nov. 29, 1918, Ringos Mill, Ky. 

Kreizinger, Edward, Corp. Co. L Sept. 27, 1918, Detroit 

Kudzba, Peter, Pvt. Co. B Sept. 20, 1918, Chicago, 111. 

KwAsNiEwsKi, Ignacy H., Mcch. Co. I Sept. 16, 1918, Detroit 

Ladovich, Nikodem, Pvt. Co. C. Feb. 4, 1919, Pittsburgh, Pa. 

Malm, Clarence A., Pvt. 1st class Co. G Dec. 4, 1918, Battle Creek, Mich. 

Marriott, Fred R., Sgt. Co. B Nov. 12, 1918, Port Huron, Mich. 

McCoNviLL, Edward, Pvt. Co. H Mar. 23, 1919, Shawmut, Mass. 

McLaughlin, Frank S., Pvt. Co. I Oct. 16, 1918, Elks Rapids, Mich. 

Merrick, Walter A., Pvt. Co. M Oct. 14, 1918, Sandusky, Mich. 

299 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

Mertens, Edward L., Corp. Co. L Sept. 27, 1918, Detroit 

Moore, Albert E., Corp. Co. A Mar. 7, 1919, Detroit 

Mueller, Frank J., Pvt. Co. E Dec. 30, 1918, Marshfield, Wis. 

Ozdarski, Joseph S., Pvt. Co. L Oct. 14, 1918, Detroit 

Patrick, Ralph M., Pvt. Co. A Jan. 19, 1919, Long Lake, Mich. 

Pawlak, Joseph, Pvt. Co. B Mar. 1, 1919, Detroit 

PiLARSKi, Alek, Pvt. Co. B Nov. 11, 1918, Detroit 

Pitts, Jay B., Pvt. Co. G Dec. 4, 1918, Kalamazoo, Mich. 

Ramotowske, Josef, Pvt. 1st class Co. H Mar. 22, 1919, Detroit 

Redmond, Nathan L., Corp. Co. H Mar. 19, 1919, Detroit 

Richardson, Eugene E., Pvt. Co. H Oct. 1, 1918, Detroit 

RiCHEY, August K., Corp. Co. A Jan. 19, 1919, Dowagiac, Mich. 

Pitcher, Edward, Pvt. Co. H Oct. 1, 1918, Mishawaka, Ind. 

RoBBiNs, Daniel, Pvt. Co. B Mar. 1, 1919, Blaine, Mich. 

Rogers, Yates K., Sgt. Co. A Jan. 22, 1919, Memphis, Tenn. 

Ruth, Frank J., Pvt. Co. B Mar. 1, 1919, Detroit 

Sapp, Frank E., Corp. Co. M. April 1, 1919, Rodney, Mich. 

Savada, John, Corp. Co. B Nov. 13, 1918, Hamtramck, Mich. 

ScHMANN, Adolph, Pvt. Co. C Nov. 13, 1918, Milwaukee, Wis. 

Scruggs, Frank W., Pvt. Co. A Jan. 19, 1919, Bettelle, Ala. 

Silkaitis, Frank, Pvt. Co. H Oct. 1, 1918, Chicago, 111. 

Smith, Wilbur B., Sgt. Co. C Jan. 20, 1919, Fort Williams, Canada 

SoCZKosKi, Anthony, Pvt. Co. I Sept. 16, 1918, Detroit 

SoKOL, Philip, Pvt. Co. L Sept. 16, 1913, Pittsburgh, Pa. 

Spelcher, Elmer E., Cook Co. C Feb. 4, 1919, Akron, Ohio 

Staley, Glenn P., Pvt. Co. K Sept. 17, 1918, Whitemore, Mich. 

Sweet, Earl D., Pvt. Co. A Mar. 9, 1919, McGregor, Mich. 

SY5KA, Frank, Pvt. Co. D Jan. 23, 1919, Detroit 

Taylor, Otto V., Pvt. Co. K Oct. 16, 1918, Alexandria, Ind. 

Trammell, Dausie W., Pvt. Co. A Mar. 9, 1919, Clio, Ky. 

VanDerMeer, John, Pvt. Co. B Sept. 20, 1918, Kalamazoo, Mich. 

VanHerwynen, John, Pvt. Co. D Sept. 20, 1918, Vriesland, Mich. 

VojTA, Charles J., Pvt. Co. K Sept. 27, 1918, Chicago, 111. 

Wagner, Harold H., Pvt. 1st class Co. E Dec. 30, 1918, Harlan, Mich. 

Wblstead, Walter J., Pvt. Co. A Mar. 9, 1919, Chicago, 111. 

Wenger, Irvin, Pvt. Co. C Nov. 29, Grand Rapids, Mich. 

Zajaczkowski, John, Pvt. Co. B ih'S ^ov. 12, 1918, Detroit 

DEATH FROM OTHER CAUSES 

Bloom, Elmer, Sgt. Co. A., 310th Engrs. (drowned) Oct. 8, 1918 

Connor, Lloyd, Corp. Co. A., 310th Engrs. (drowned) Oct. 8, 1918 

Dargan, Arthur, Pvt. Co. A., 310th Engrs. (drowned) Oct. 8, 1918 

Hill, C. B., Lt. Co. A., 310th Engrs. (drowned) Qct. 8, 1918 

LovELL, Albert W., Pvt. Hq. Co Aug. 10, 1918 (drowned), England 

Marchlewski, Joseph D., Pvt. Co. G..Oct. 28, 1918 (accident), Alpena, Mich. 
Martin, J. C, Corp. Co. E..Oct. 21, 1918 (accidentally shot), Portland, Mich. 
Russell, Wm. H., Corp. Co. M. .April 19, 1919 (accident by grenade), Detroit 
Sawickis, Frank K., Pvt. Co. I.. April 29, 1919 (Bolo grenade), Racine, Wis. 

Sickles, Floyd A., Pvt. Co. M Dec. 6, 1918 (accident), Deckerville, Mich. 

Szymanski, Louis A., Pvt. Co. C.Nov. 27, 1918 (accidentally shot), Detroit 

Wilson, Dale, Pvt. 1st class Co. B April 3, 1919, Alexander, Mich. 

Wing, Homer, Pvt. Co. A, 310th Engrs.. May 31, 1919 (rly. accident), Detr-oit 
Young, Edward L., Sgt. Co. G Mar. 14, 1919 (suicide), Moosie, Pa. 

300 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

DIED OF WOUNDS RECEIVED IN ACTION 

Baix, Elbert, Pvt. 1st class Co. B Nov. 14, 1918, Henderson, Ky. 

Bowman, William H., Sgt. Co. B Mar. 1, 1919, Penn Laird, Va. 

Clish, Frank, Pvt. Co. B Mar. 1, 1919, Baraga, Mich. 

Collins, Edmund R., First Lt. Co. H Mar. 24, 1919, Racine, Wis. 

Cook, Clarence, Pvt. Co. A Feb. 20, 1919, Stilton, Kan. 

Detzler, Allick F., Pvt. Co. B Nov. 15, 1918, Prescott, Mich. 

Dunaetz, Isiador, Pvt. Co. C Jan. 31, 1919, Sodus, Mich. 

Etter, Frank M., Sgt. Co. C Feb. 6, 1919, Marion, Ind. 

Franklin, Walter E., Pvt. Co. E Dec. 31, 1918, Bellevue, Mich. 

Gray, Alson W., Corp. Co. K Nov. 8, 1918, South Boston, Va. 

Koslousky, Mattios, Pvt. Co. H April 2, 1919, Chicago, 111. 

Lehmann, William J., Corp. Co. A Jan. 23, 1919, Danville, 111. 

Lencioni, Sebastiano, Pvt. Co. A Jan. 22, 1919, Whitewater, Wis. 

Lyttle, Alfred E., Corp. Co. A., 310th Engrs Oct. 31, 1918 

Meister, Emanuel A., Sgt. Co. C Sept. 27, 1918, Detroit 

Morris, John H. W., Pvt. Co. B, 310th Engrs Oct. 18, 1918 

Mylon, James J., Corp. Co. E Dec. 31, 1918, Detroit 

Niemi, Mattie I., Pvt. Co. M Sept. 30, 1918, Verona, Mich. 

Peterson, August B., Pvt. Co. H Mar. 22, 1919, Whitehall, Mich. 

Phillips, Clifford F., First Lt. Co. H May 10, 1919, Lincoln, Nebr. 

Powers, Ralph E., Lt. .337th Amb. Co Jan. 22, 1919, Detroit 

Rose, Benjamin, Pvt. Co. A. Mar. 11, 1919, Packard, Ky. 

Skoselas, Andrew, Pvt. Co. C Feb. 4, 1919, Eastlake, Mich. 

Smith, George J., Pvt. Co. A Jan. 19, 1919, Yale, Mich. 

Stier, Victor, Pvt. Co. A Jan. 19, 1919, Cincinnati, Ohio 

Tamas, Stanley P., Pvt. Co. D Oct. 29, 1918, Manistee, Mich. 

ZiEGENBEiN, WiLLiAM J., Corp. Co. A, 310th Engrs Oct. 16, 1918 

MISSING IN ACTION 

Babinger, William R., Corp. Hq. Co Oct. 2, 1918, Detroit 

Carter, James, Pvt. Hd. Co Oct. 2, 1918, Cornwall, England' 

Carter, William J., Pvt. 1st class Co. A Jan. 19, 1919, Detroit 

Collins, Earl W., Corp. Co. H Mar. 18, 1919, Detroit 

Cwenk, Joseph, Pvt. 1st class Co. A Jan. 19, 1919, Milan, Mich. 

Frank, Arthur, Pvt. M. G. Co Sept. 29, 1918, Detroit 

Gutowski, Boleslaw, Pvt. Co. C Nov. 29, 1918, Wyandotte, Mich: 

Hodge, Elmer W., Pvt. Co. C Nov. 29, 1918, Shelby, Mich. 

Hutchinson, Alfred G., Pvt. Co. A Jan. 19, 1919, Plainwell, Mich: 

Jenks, Stillman v., Pvt. 1st class Co. A Jan. 19, 1919, Shelby, Mich: 

Jonker, Nicholas, Pvt. Co. C Nov. 29, 1918, Grand Rapids, Mich.- 

Keefe, Thomas H., Pvt. Co. C Feb. 4, 1919, Chicago, 111. 

Kieffer, Simon P., Pvt. M. G. Co Sept. 29, 1918, Detroit^ 

KowALSKi, Stanley, Pvt. Co. A Jan. 19, 1919, Lodz, Poland- 

Kussrath, Charles Aug., Jr., Pvt. Co. A Jan. 19, 1919, Chicago, 111.- 

KuRowsKi, Max J., Pvt. Co. A Jan. 19, 1919, Grand Rapids, Mich. 

Mannor, John T., Pvt. 1st class Co. A Jan. 19, 1919, Menominee, Mich. 

Martin, William J., Pvt. Co. A Jan. 19, 1919, Detroit 

McTavish, Stewart M., Pvt. 1st class Co. A... Jan. 19, 1919, Stratford, Can. 

Peyton, Edward W., Corp. Co. A Jan. 19, 1919, Richmond, Ky.- 

PoTH, Russell A., Pvt. Co. A Jan. 19, 1919, Brown City, Mich. 

Rauschenberger, Albert, Corp. Co. A Jan. 19, 1919, Grand Rapids, Mich. 

Retherford, Lindsay, Pvt. 1st class Co. A Jan. 19, 1919, Hustonville, Ky. 

301 



Cy 



V 



THE AMERICAN EXPEDITION 

Russell, Archie E., Pvt. 1st class Co. A Jan. 19, 1919, Hesperia, Mich. 

Sajnaj, Leo, Pvt. 1st class Co. A — Jan. 19, 1919, Chicago, 111. 

ScHROEDER, HERBERT A., Corp. Co. B Sept. 20, 1918, Detroit 

Scott, Perry C, Corp. Hq. Co Oct. 2, 1918, Detroit 

Weitzel, Henry R., Pvt. Co. C Nov. 29, 1918, Bay City, Mich. 

Williams, Edson A., Pvt. Co. A Jan. 19, 1919, Minneapolis, Minn. 

PRISONERS OF WAR 

Albers, George, Pvt. 1st class Co. I Nov. 3, 1918, Muskegon, Mich. 

Frucce, John, Pvt. Co. H Mar. 22, 1919, Muskegon, Mich. 

FuLCHER, Earl W., Pvt. Co. H Mar. 22, 1919, Tyre, Mich. 

Haurilik, Mike M., Pvt. Co. C Nov. 29, 1918, Detroit 

HoGAN, Freeman, Pvt. Co. M Mar. 31, 1919, Detroit 

Huston, Walter L., Pvt. Co. C Nov. 29, 1918, Muskegon, Mich. 

Laursen, Jens C, Mech. Co. M May 1, 1919, Marlette, Mich. 

Leitzell, Glenn W., Sgt. Co. M Mar. 31, 1919, Mifflinburg, Pa. 

Prince, Arthur, Corp. Co. B Mar. 1, 1939, Onaway, Mich. 

Triplett, Johnnie, Pvt. Co. C Nov. 29, 1918, Lackay, Ky. 

Scheulke, William R., Pvt. Co. H Mar. 22, 1919, Stronach, Mich. 

Vanis, Anton J., Pvt. Co. D Jan. 23, 1919, Chicago, 111. 

DIED OF DISEASE 

Bayer, Arthur, Pvt. Co. G Sept. 12, 1918, Kalamazoo, Mich. 

Bayer, Charles, Pvt. Co. F Sept. 12, 1918, Detroit 

Berryhill, Chester W., Pvt. Co. F Sept. 11, 1918, Midland, Mich. 

Rickert, Albert F., Pvt. Co. C Sept. 5, 1918, Mt. Clemens, Mich. 

BiGELow, John W., Pvt. Co. E Sept. 10, 1918, Copefish, Mich. 

Brieve, Joseph, Pvt. Co. E Sept. 7, 1918, Holland, Mich. 

BuRDiCK, Andrew, Pvt. Co. B Sept. 19, 1918, Manitou Island, Mich. 

Byles, James B., Wag. Sup. Co Feb. 21, 1919, Valdosta, Ga. 

Cannizzaro, Rayfield, Pvt. Co. K Sept. 13, 1918, Edmore, Mich. 

Casey, Marcus T., Second Lt. Co. C Sept. 16, 1918, Nevf Richmond, Wis. 

Ciesielski, Walter, Pvt. 1st class Co. E Feb. 27, 1919, Detroit 

Clark, Clyde, Pvt. Co. L Sept, 18, 1918, Lansing, Mich. 

DusABLOM, William H., Pvt. Co. I Sept. 18, 1918, Trenton, Mich. 

Easley, Albert H., Pvt. Co. L Sept. 13, 1918, Kewadin, Mich. 

Farrand, Ray, Pvt. Co. I Sept. 13, 1918, Armada, Mich. 

Fields, Clarence, Pvt. Co. F Sept. 19, 1918, Bay City, Mich. 

Finnegan, Leo, Pvt. Co. B Sept. 17, 1918, Grand Rapids, Mich. 

Gariepy, Henry, Sergt. Co. B Sept. 10, 1918, Sault Ste. Marie, Mich. 

Gresser, Joseph A., Pvt. Co. C Sept. 8, 1918, Wyandotte, Mich. 

Hendy, Alfred H., Pvt. Co. C Sept. 23, 1918, Grosse He, Mich. 

Henley, John T., Pvt. Co. I Sept. 11, 1918, Chicago, 111. 

Hodgson, Fred L., Pvt. Co. M Sept. 14, 1918, Cassopolis, Mich. 

Hunt, Bert, Pvt. Co. D Sept. 16, 1918, Hudsonville, Mich. 

Jackson, Jesse C, Pvt. 1st class Hq. Co Sept. 15, 1918, Detroit 

Jordan, Carl B., Pvt. Co. B Sept. 10, 1918, Ferry, Mich. 

Kalaska, Joseph, Pvt. Co. I Sept. 18, 1918, Trenton, Mich. 

Keicz, Andrzei, Pvt. Co. C Sept. 13, 1918, Detroit 

Kistler, Herbert B., Pvt. Co. I Sept. 11, 1918, Lancaster Pa. 

Kroll, John, Jr., Pvt. Co. D Sept. 10, 1918, Holland, Mich. 

KuKLA, Valentine, Pvt. Co. K Sept. 12, 1918, Kawkawlin, Mich. 

Kulwicki, Andrew J., Pvt. Co. K Jan. 28, 1918, Milwaukee, Wis. 

302 



FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI 

Lanter, Marion F., Pvt. Co. I April 26, 1919, Savoy, Ky. 

Lauzon^ Henry, Pvt. Co. L Sept. 28, 1918, Pinconning, Mich. 

Link, Stephen J., First Lt. Hq. Co Sept. 20, 1918, Taylorville, 111. 

Malusky, Joseph, Pvt. Co. C Sept. 10, 1919, Fountain, Mich. 

MaybauMj Harold, Pvt. Co. E Sept. 9, 1918, Ainsworth, Ind. 

McDonald, Angus, Pvt. Co. E Sept. 12, 1918, Manila, Mich. 

Mead, William C, Pvt. Co. B Sept. 14, 1918, Mayville, Mich. 

Michel, Lewis M., Pvt. Co. C Sept. 10, 1918, Parnassus, Pa. 

Neri, Vincent, Bug. Co. C Sept. 11, 1918, Detroit 

Nicholls, Charles B., Pvt. Co. B Sept. 12, 1918, Rose City, Mich. 

Nunn, Arthur, Pvt. Co. M Sept. 13, 1918, Croswell, Mich. 

O'Brien, Raymond, Pvt. Hq. Co Sept. 12, 1918, Saginaw, Mich. 

O'Connor, Lawrence S., Corp. Co. C Sept. 8, 1918, Lancaster, Ohio 

Parrott, Jesse F., Pvt. Co. K Sept. 25, 1918, Mt. Clemens, Mich. 

Passow, Ferdinand, Pvt. Co. D Sept. 11, 1918, Mosinee, Wis. 

Petraska, Oscar H., Pvt. Co. K Sept. 10, 1918, Wyandotte, Mich. 

Petulski, John, Pvt. Co. K Sept. 15, 1918, Detroit 

Rose, Floyd, Pvt. Co. I Sept. 10, 1918, Vicksburg, Mich. 

Rowe, Ezra T., Pvt. M. G. Co Sept. 16, 1918, Hart, Mich. 

Rynbrandt, Raymond R., Pvt. Co. D Sept. 11, 1918, Byron Center, Mich. 

Schepel, Tiemon, Pvt. Co. D Sept. 11, 1918, Holland, Mich. 

Shaughnessy, John, Pvt. Hq. Co Sept. 15, 1918, Missoula, Mont. 

Shingledecker, Dwight, Pvt. Co. A Sept. 11, 1918, Dowagiac, Mich. 

StoGKen, Orville I., Pvt. Co. A Sept. 13, 1918, Battle Creek,. Mich. 

SuRRAN, Harry H., Pvt. Co. A Sept. 14, 1918, Culver, Ind. 

Teggus, William G., Corp. Hq. Co Sept. 11, 1918, Pontiac, Mich. 

Thompson, Henry, Pvt. Co. A Sept. 16, 1918, Elkhart, Ind. 

Van Deventer, George E., Pvt. Co. C Sept. 11, 1918, Rupert, Idaho 

Wadsworth, Laurence L., Pvt. Co. I Sept. 20, 1918, Aurora, Ind. 

Waldeyer, Norbert C, Pvt. Co. D Sept. 16, 1918, Detroit 

Waprzycki, Sylvester, Pvt. 337th Amb. Co Sept. 14, 1918 

Weaver, Lewis T., Pvt. Co. A Sept. 15, 1918, Marlette, Mich. 

Weesner, Cliffford E., Pvt. Co. F Sept. 11, 1918, Jackson, Mich. 

Wetershof, John T., Pvt. Co. B Sept. 11, 1918, Grand Rapids, Mich. 

Whitford, Jason, Pvt. Co. C Sept. 19, 1918, Whitemore, Mich. 

Witt, Louis C, Pvt. Hq. Co Sept. 13, 1918, Detroit 

Wood, Stewart W., Corp. Co. C Sept. 7, 1918, Atlanta, Ga. 

Zlotcha, Mike, Pvt. Co. E Sept. 23, 1918, Hamtramck, Mich. 



303 



A).UE.D MAP 



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